das heute als Sensation im Ticker von vier österreichischen Medien auftaucht.
Einstiegsfrage: Die Flüchtlinge, was haben sie versagt, nicht? Was würden sie sagen, wie genau sie versagt haben?
(Von den österreichischen Medien berichteter Inhalt: Als Putins kleine grüne Männchen auf der Krim einmarschiert sind, da wusste Merkel sofort, dass Putin lügt, und dass sie von jetzt an sehr vorsichtig sein müsse, denn in ihren ersten Amtszeiten habe Putin noch nicht gelogen. [edit: Which is a clear misrepression of what was said in tone.])
Das letze Mal, dass Amanpour einen Clip (ausgenommen Amanpour Werbeteaser (einer)) von 3min30 auf youtube eingestellt hat war - ehm am 23. Februar 2023, damals ein Interviewausschnitt (eine Frage, weil mehr braucht man ja nicht, mit Polens Präsidenten “on the struggle against Russia”).
Amanpour ist ein wöchentliches Format.
Das muss man verstehen, Merkel war ja auch nur seit 29.04.2023 für Interviewfragen über die Ukraine nicht zu haben, erschien eine Minute zu spät im Studio, und dann war auch noch ihr Personenschützer müde!
Äußere Umstände.
Da hat Amanpour alles rausgeholt, was als Zeitdokument für die Nachwelt möglich war.
Drei Minuten dreißig.
Hier vielleicht zum Ausgleich ein 18 Minuten Interview mit Francis Fukuyama. Das hilft sicher irgendwem weiter…
Vielleicht nochmal die 17 Minuten mit Kasparow als erstem (!) Russland/Ukraine Krieg Experten, der den Krieg für das US Publikum bei Amanpour kontextualisieren durfte?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Chancellor Merkel, welcome to the program.
When I last interviewed you just before your retirement, it was the heyday. It was liberal democracy. It was doing pretty well. You had invited or accepted about a million refugees. That was still, you know, considered something incredibly compassionate and pragmatic. You had a very booming trade. It’s almost -- the three years since you’ve left office, all of this is in question. The refugees have made, you know, a big, big power to the far-right in your country, to the far-right in this country, and around Europe. Trade is very difficult now. You had yoked your trade to China.
That’s a big issue right now. Your energy to Russia. That’s a big issue right now.
You said you wanted to talk about what you did well and some of your misjudgments. What would you say the misjudgments you made were in that group of things that I just said?
ANGELA MERKEL, AUTHOR, “FREEDOM” AND FORMER GERMAN CHANCELLOR (through translator): I think, and I’m trying to do that in this book, we always have to look at matters as in under the conditions that we were in then. I don’t think it makes a whole lot of sense to say from today’s vantage points in hindsight what would one have done then, because that was not the reality of the day.
[13:10:00]
So, the first thing I’d like to say is that for me it was a very good experience when this mass of. Syrian refugees came to our country, that there was a great readiness by the people, by the German people to welcome that. But also, obviously, we have to reduce illegal migration. That’s a problem that you have here in the United States as well.
At the time, I came to this agreement with Turkey, which worked very well. Illegal migration was reduced by 95 percent due to this. And then, in the meantime, we accepted about a million Ukrainian refugees, which was a great achievement. And there was broad -- it was broadly welcomed. But the right-wing parties, that is true, the AFD, was strengthened due to this.
But I need to point out that when I left office, they hovered around 11 percent now, 18 percent. So, a lot of other things probably happened since to make them that strong.
And as to Russia, which you mentioned as well, that is sort of separate chapter. 2008, at the very latest. Once we had -- after the Bucharest NATO Summit, we knew that there were great tensions. And my approach at the time was to try to bring about a prevention of that sort of war that we have now through diplomatic means. I think the COVID pandemic in a way really was the nail to this coffin -- to the coffin of these diplomatic attempts because Putin was very -- had a phobia. He didn’t want to get infected by COVID. So, he didn’t want to enter into diplomatic talks, didn’t want to meet anyone then.
This -- due to the war of aggression against Ukraine, a new terrible chapter opened and something that brought all of us closer to great global confrontation.
AMANPOUR: I’m going to dig deeper into Putin because it’s fascinating, your insights, your meetings, and the things you write about him. I mean, you’re not shy about saying quite a lot of really interesting things that you never would have said in office.
But also, we’re in the United States. There’s a new president of the United States who will take office in January, Donald Trump. You worked with him once. I want to start sort of at the beginning, and there’s been a lot made and you’ve written about it, when you were one of the first world leaders to meet him. You came to Washington.
And out of sight of the cameras, you shook hands. You did your thing, et cetera. In sight of the cameras, in the famous Oval Office with the fireplace between you, he didn’t want to shake hands with you. And even though you asked him kind of discreetly, he just refused point blank and kept looking at the cameras. And I thought it was really interesting because you said, he wanted to create conversation fodder through his behavior, while I thought I was having a discussion with somebody completely normal.
Is he not completely normal in your view?
MERKEL (through translator): I think President Trump lives off actually acting unconventionally, and in this way draws the attention of people to himself. Either he shook the hands of some of my colleagues three times longer than you usually do, or with me, he didn’t do it at all. At this point in time, I had forgotten and normally he would say, well, you shake hands and that’s it. But when you’re in this situation, you don’t -- and you don’t even think about it. But with him, all of these external things, these gestures, all was -- were part of a statement because he wanted to very clearly show that outside of political talks, in these situations, he puts down a marker, whatever he means with it.
AMANPOUR: You also described him as I dealt in facts, he dealt with emotions. How did that affect some of the key issues that you were trying to deal with, his emotional view of politics?
MERKEL (through translator): I would say looking back, we, and I’m also speaking here of NATO members and E.U. members, we were actually able to get to sensible agreements with him. But when you think about tariffs on steel, for example, at first, they were only talking about China and he was talking about the subsidies that China injects into the steel industry. And then, all of a sudden, we were also covered by tariffs. And these tariffs are still in place today, unfortunately. But then, he wanted to put down a marker, make a statement on this.
But in spite of all adversity, we were covered by tariffs. NATO members able to pursue NATO in a sensible way, and I would hope and wish that this happens also in the next four years to come.
AMANPOUR: I remember very distinctly when Donald Trump was first elected, you did one of -- you were the only one to actually welcome his election conditionally, in other words, based on the respect and the adherence to mutual values, democracy, freedom, diversity, rule of law, human rights, et cetera. And I just, you know, wonder whether you thought he did act in that way, and especially because you said, he was clearly fascinated by the Russian president. In the years that followed, I received the distinct impression that he was captivated by politicians with autocratic and dictatorial traits. How did that manifest itself to you?
[13:15:00]
MERKEL (through translator): Well, in the way that he spoke about Putin, the way that he spoke about the North Korean president, obviously, apart from critical remarks he made, there was always a kind of fascination at the sheer power of what these people could do.
So, my impression always was that he dreamt of actually overriding maybe all those parliamentary bodies that he felt were in a way an encumbrance upon him and that he wanted to decide matters on his own and in a democracy, well, you cannot reconcile that with democratic values.
AMANPOUR: Can I ask you, it just popped into my head, his former chief of staff, John Kelly, who was a marine general, he actually said that Donald Trump had expressed interest approval of Nazi generals. I wish mine -- my, you know, politicians, my military were like the German generals. Does that surprise you that he would say something like that?
MERKEL (through translator): Honestly speaking, I never heard this and I wouldn’t want to make any comment on this. I said that he was fascinated, not too much co-determination as it were, or too many other people having a say. He wanted to be the person who makes the judgment and the call.
But I think if you approach -- once you approached him without any fear and with clear -- a clear cut strategy, he listened. And I think he smells when people are a little bit afraid of him. And when you’re not, then you can enter into good talks with him.
AMANPOUR: And you were not?
MERKEL (through translator): No. I was the elected chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. I mean, we’re not a negligible country. We
have our own interests, our own vested interests, and I was always guided by these national interests. I think the United States of America are such an important power, a superpower.
But we in Europe are also important. The United States of America cannot do things on their own completely. We have an alliance. We have NATO together.
So, this is not just something where we owe something to the Americans, as Donald Trump quite often said, but the United States of America, too, must have a vested interest or should have a vested interest. At least that would be my advice, because when we stand together, we’re simply stronger, and there are so many in the world who do not want democracy. So, strength is important in this -- against this background.
AMANPOUR: You and President Obama did write an op-ed saying when we stand together, we’re stronger. But you also have written in your book about what it was like to negotiate with Donald Trump. And all of this is important, not just to look back, but to look forward. Because you’ve talked about tariffs. Well, he has threatened already, not even in office yet, to slap huge tariffs on many, many different countries, including possibly Europe.
And you’ve described him as a negotiator who didn’t see a win-win situation. Tell me how he came across as a negotiator.
MERKEL (through translator): Well, for me, it was clear that with him there will not be a free trade agreement, for example, between the European Union and the United States of America. With President Obama, we had tried to come to this Transatlantic Trade Agreement. We negotiated that. And I didn’t think that this was possible Donald Trump.
I think at the end of the day, Donald Trump would always weigh what his actions mean for the American voter and for the American citizen and weigh that in the balance. And one of the issues here are high prices. So, if I were to impose tariffs on countries where I might be able to buy things cheaply and due to the terrorist prices will rise, then it will be difficult for somebody such as President Trump, and he didn’t want prices to rise, at least not for been years ago.
So, there will be big discussions over tariffs and the impact of that. That’s very clear. But President Trump always said to his voters, also during his first term in office, that he will have a better life due to him if they vote for him. So, there are very good reasons to look at the world being sort of linked by all of these different bonds, and the United States doesn’t have all of these raw materials and raw resources that they need for production on their own. They need the rest of the world for this.
AMANPOUR: You have said that he has a nationalistic tone, and that a lot of his negotiations involve a zero-sum game, that for him to win, the other person had to lose, period, end of story. Is that constructive in diplomacy or trade negotiations?
[13:20:00]
MERKEL (through translator): It’s not my conviction. I am convinced that through wise compromises, you can bring about win-win situations, situations where the whole world benefits and when self also benefits from that.
I am someone who actually greatly respects international organizations, the United Nations, the World Trade Organizations and others. I think they’re very, very important. I would like to remind all of us, which has somebody receded into the background that the biggest challenges are climate change and the loss of biodiversity. A human being gets much more vulnerable due to this.
And China, the biggest emitter, we have to have them in on this because otherwise we will not be able to make progress on climate change. It may be -- you may, in the short run win, but in the long run, humankind will not be the better for it, will not survive.
AMANPOUR: Can I just ask you two quick questions? Do you think he will pull out of the climate deal? Do you think he will pull out of NATO? Do you think he will say more and more of the defense spending and that we won’t defend you unless you pay more?
MARTIN: Well, I’m not the Oracle of Delphi, so to speak, in this interview. What I witnessed was that the results of the Paris Climate Conference, that was something that he withdrew from and the G20 meeting in Hamburg. We then had to adopt a 19 to one statement due to this, whether United States stayed out of it.
I hope and trust, at least, this was the case last time that NATO will prevail, but the request that the Europeans too or the demand that the Europeans pay more, will still be out there. Germany is now paying the 2 percent that we agreed on in Wales, but the American defense budget is way higher. And the challenge for Europe, also with regard to Russia in order to develop a credible deterrence, will be to also increase defense expenditure.
So, I assume that, I have to say, that 2 percent will probably not be the end of it. And that’s what I write in my book too. That’s my prediction.
AMANPOUR: Let’s talk about the security of Europe and Putin and Ukraine. That’s the big issue out there right now. In your book, you write about Trump’s negotiation to get U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, and you essentially say that the way it was done, with no communication with the Afghan government, only with the Taliban, the fate of Afghanistan was sealed, that essentially, Afghanistan was given back to the Taliban.
So, everybody’s trying to figure out what is Trump going to do when he says, I can end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours or whatever. What do you think, knowing what you know about this particular individual and knowing what you know about Putin, how do you think, under these two presidents, that war is going to be ended?
MERKEL (through translator): This war is such an incredible suffering for the Ukrainian population and President Zelenskyy proved to be so courageous when on the day of the aggression happened, didn’t leave the country, didn’t flee, but stayed in the country and is fighting ever since for a sovereign Ukraine.
I don’t want to speculate. I don’t want to say I can compare this with Afghanistan. I can only say the result of Afghanistan was a disaster.
Because once you have an elected government, such as the Afghan government, and not include them into such negotiations. So, basically, give to those who actually violate human rights every day, and give them the power of attorney, so to speak, then later on they have all the possibilities at their disposal to set the conditions.
There was no internal peace process in Afghanistan due to this, and President Biden actually accepted that and that result of the negotiations, and we saw that this didn’t mean anything good for the Afghan people, even until today. But in Ukraine, well, it will depend on how Europe will sort of -- and this is -- it’s sort of due to my successor, how Europe will position itself. I can’t say anything on this now.
AMANPOUR: OK. Do you think, as people have said, that had you accepted in 2007 or ’06, I can’t remember when, but there was that specific NATO summit, Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, this war would not have happened?
MERKEL (through translator): No. No, that’s exactly what I not don’t think. I also described this. And it was 2008 in Bucharest. Actually, this was not about NATO membership, but it was the sort of precursor to that membership action plan. And we knew from the accession of the Baltic countries and from the accession of other countries that this usually takes three to five years.
[13:25:00]
And during those years they’re not protected by the NATO umbrella. I was firmly convinced that Putin would not sort of allow this to happen without taking action. So, I thought it was wrong to actually put this on the agenda at the time, particularly since the Ukrainian people were split right down the middle since the Russian fleet was actually located in the Black Sea, and there was a negotiation we had and a contract we had with Russia. So, so it was not the right point in time.
I was actually not the only one who thought that this was wrong and that the point in time was wrong, the central and eastern Europeans wanted to be protected and therefore, supporting Ukraine. But we, at the time, that would have led Ukraine into a vulnerable exposure. I would have loved to have a road taken by them that now is has been taken by Finland and Sweden, and that they would then later on start to accede to NATO.
AMANPOUR: Even in negotiations, the Ukrainian politicians, whether it’s President Zelenskyy or others, say, well, how can we negotiate with a liar?
He says one thing and does another thing. In your book, you write point blank that Putin told you a brazen lie when you confronted him about Russian troops inside Crimea and Eastern Ukraine in 2014. And he also, at one point told you, look at what’s happening in Ukraine, this is the 2004 revolution, the orange revolution, I will never allow that to happen.
How can anybody negotiate with somebody who you yourself, who knew Putin pretty well, calls a brazen liar?
MERKEL (through translator): Well, at the beginning of my work as federal chancellor, that was not what he did. He did not say these brazen lies, but later on in Crimea, he did admit that, that he had lied. And that was a turning point in our relationship, quite clearly, that I had to be extremely cautious in my approach towards him.
So, you cannot only trust in an agreement with him, that’s absolutely correct. So, we have to give to Ukraine, in which form whatsoever, security guarantees, very clear and absolutely reliable guarantees as we did gave them when they said we’re going to dispense with our nuclear power at the time. But Ukraine cannot be left without any security guarantee in what maybe we think is a peace.
In my book, I write quite clearly that apart from the military support for Ukraine, it is very important to also think now of how a diplomatic solution can look like after the end of the war.
AMANPOUR: I’m struck in your book, you as the first female chancellor of Germany, you seem to have been heavily challenged by two macho men. I mean, Donald Trump spent his first campaign, as you write, you know, attacking you, and you were surprised, you say, that he would spend his presidential campaign attacking a German chancellor. Putin kept trying to test you as well, and there’s the famous story about the dog, right? And now, he’s saying that he never knew that you were afraid of the dog when he brought the dog into the meeting the second time that he had that meeting.
So, he said, please, Angela, please know that I didn’t do this to frighten you. I’m paraphrasing him. But you thought he knew exactly what he was doing.
MERKEL (through translator): Well look into that particular chapter in my book. When I made my first visit, my foreign political adviser, Christoph Heusgen, at the time, said to his interlocutor, his counterpart, that I had been bitten by a dog. So, it would be very kind not to have a dog present.
I didn’t like them all that much. And then he gave to me a stuffed animal, a dog and said, this one is not going to bite you.
So, maybe he forgotten -- he’s forgotten it. But if you read this whole story, then it’s not very probable that he didn’t know anything about it.
I’m writing in my memoir how the situation actually was in Sochi. I adopted a brave face and said, well, never as the British royal family says, never explain, never complain. I survived. The dog didn’t bite me. So, let’s leave it at that.
But, I mean, there’s no other explanation for it. It’s a little -- a small attempt to test the waters, you know, how resilient a person is, how strong. It’s power play, basically.
[13:30:00]
AMANPOUR: And it appears you met that power and more. You were asked once at a G20 Summit, whether you are a feminist and you just kind of freaked out. You said no, you didn’t know how to answer it.
MERKEL (through translator): Well, you see, that was a strange situation somehow because in preparing for G20, there was a meeting of women and they all said say it, say it, and I just couldn’t come out with it that way. I thought about it later on, and I think I’ve grown into a feminist, if you like, over time in my very own way, because there were two differences. I think I was never out there on the front fighting for feminist issue other women did that and I didn’t want to as it were sort of say that I did that.
And in the west, it was always said, for example, that in the GDR, we had actually participation women. There was equal opportunity, but we never actually had equal participation in power. There had never been a female member in the Politburo. So, I must say that promoting women’s issue is important. And if we want to have equal opportunity, gender parity for men and women, we have to fight for it. And this is what I did over time.
I am a feminist in my very own way, but I never saw it in a way that we need to push men aside. Men have to change, yes, of course, if we actually want to have a truly a world where there is true parity. They will have to take over jobs that women have done so far.
AMANPOUR: Sometimes I wondered whether being a woman informed your decision, the compassion you showed to so many women, refugees, and children, as well as the men who you allowed in 2015. In the book, again, you say, there was my career before 2015 and the refugees and after, when you said, we can do this. You said, I never knew that I would be bludgeoned over the head or such four simple words would be so controversial. Talk to me about that. Reflect on that.
MARTIN: Well, if I go through my speeches, through everything that I said during my political life, I very, very often, a hundred times, I said, we’ll manage, we can do this. So, I thought this was something quite ordinary, but it does denote that I do see this as a very difficult task. I mean, you don’t usually say I get out of bed today and that’s a big task, so I will be able to manage. But I thought that this was indeed a huge task for us, but I was convinced that we can do this.
And I was, as you say, bludgeoned over the head because of that. And I don’t think rightly so, because there was, in a way, created this impression as if I didn’t do anything in order to reduce illegal migration. But I entered into negotiations with Turkey, for example, it was simply unimaginable for me that people who are in need, in distress, individuals stand at the very sort of border of our country, and we send water cannons to get rid of them, to keep them away from the German border. And next Sunday, I give a Sunday speech saying, we hold these values of human dignity and so on. And these people have, after all, been by human traffickers under their -- threat to their lives been smuggled to Germany.
And when we negotiated the E.U. asylum system and also negotiated this agreement with Turkey, people criticized me. They said, how can you negotiate something like this with President Erdogan? But well, we will have to. Also, in trying to combat this inflow of refugees and deal with it politically by negotiating with people who are not died in the war -- Democrats, as we see them, it’s in the interest of the people because these days, these particular refugees are closer to their home country. We supported them by money in order to get training, in order to get also schooling for their children and many other things.
AMANPOUR: You do see the situation everywhere now, which is very anti- immigrant. It just is. It’s just very anti-immigrant. Do you think that’s a phase, or is this here to stay, this very, you know, right-wing hardness against immigrants? It affected the U.S. election. It affects elections in Europe.
MERKEL (through translator): Well, that is a phenomenon of globalization in a way. We have climate change. People from Africa, and this will particularly affect Europe, will migrate. And there will be a flow of migrants because these people no longer have any kind of life, any kind of basis for existence in their own country.
[13:35:00]
And I hear you have migrants not only from Venezuela, from Latin America, from Mexico, but through very different roots from other countries. And if we are not trying to help these countries of origin through development aid or whatever, through granting them aid, to give these people a chance, then we will suffer too. We will have to spend a lot of money to close ourselves off against this.
So, we need to solve this issue with the countries of origin. And of course, illegal migration needs to be combat, needs to be fought against, these human traffickers need to be fought against. But the harsher we are in trying to shut ourselves off against the rest of the world, the bigger this issue will become. I’m firmly convinced of this.
AMANPOUR: I was also struck by something that Putin told you at one of these meetings where he said, and I’m going to paraphrase, the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest political -- geopolitical disaster of the 20th century. And it clearly seems like he means it, and I wonder, because you said once, in one of your speeches, that you did sort of a compromise. One day these two countries will join NATO. And he basically talking about Ukraine and Georgia. And you said, that he said, I will never let that happen. You may leave, but I will still be coming back. I’ll still stay as president and I won’t let it happen. Do you think that he will never let that happen?
MERKEL (through translator): At the time, what he said, he didn’t say, I will still be there, but he said something similar to that. I said, you will not always be president either, which is totally clear. But what’s true is that this was actually -- he had a point there. For me, the collapse of the Soviet Union meant that I was finally able to have freedom as a GDR citizen, but I think Brzezinski did write a book about the Grand Chess Board, and he wrote that it’s going to be interesting to see whether one day Ukraine becomes a member of NATO, and he said that it was, actually, in America’s vested interest. And once Ukraine is in NATO, Russia is no longer a great global power anymore.
And I think that’s something that Putin would sign off to, that then Russia will no longer be a great global power. That’s exactly what he’s aiming at.
And that is a view of the world, which doesn’t ask the Ukrainians what they want. I want the Ukrainians, at some point in time, to determine their own fate. And that must be our goal. And we already paid a very heavy price, and they paid a very heavy price in particular.
So, there’s a huge amount of work for those who will then have political responsibility on the one hand, deterrence vis-a-vis Russia, he will not be allowed to attack us, and at the same time uphold sovereignty for Ukraine, which -- and Ukraine gets certain security guarantees, how they will then what shape and form they will take is something that I obviously, at this point in time, will not be able to say.
AMANPOUR: And finally, back to your life behind the Iron Curtain the GDR. You said that your mother and your family allowed you some safe space to let off steam. What were the kind of things you did that got you into trouble, or how did she know that you needed a place to be able to come and, you know, talk freely because you were so controlled throughout your life?
MERKEL (through translator): Well, this went very quickly. My parents, for example, didn’t allow me, when I was in school, to become a member of the youth organization of the Socialist Party, to become a pioneer. I was then able to choose, after my first grade. And if I didn’t, it would have meant you’re not allowed -- if you’re not a pioneer, you’re not allowed to organize a Christmas party, you’re not allowed to be with the others. And I said, I want to be a pioneer to my parents, and they allowed me this.
But then, it was very clear that I would never become a chairperson, let’s say of my pioneer group because my father was a parson. And I was able to discuss this with my parents. So, I always had this safe haven, if you like, where we could discuss all of these things and actually, were an exact contravention to common sense where you were able to address these issues and feel free in school, you could not do this.
Even if you had sort of, let’s say, a ballpoint pen from the west, because my grandmother from Hamburg had sent me one, and people were looking at that and we’re talking about this, you couldn’t talk freely about looking on West German television, for example. What kind of book you were reading?
I learned this step by step. And at home, I could address all these issues freely.
AMANPOUR: What are you proudest of? And what is your biggest regret?
[13:40:00]
MERKEL (through translator): Proud? That’s difficult to say. But I’m satisfied that I was able to steer Germany through a number of storms during four terms. We had the global financial crisis that had dramatic consequences for the world. Just think of the BRICS countries, for example, and that I was able to navigate the difficult euro crisis waters. The -- actually, I would say also the migration crisis, we did manage, although a lot remains still to be done. And the COVID pandemic, less people died in Germany than other countries. That, too, I think was good.
I’m not satisfied with climate, with what we -- our achievements there. You know, we did not really take the necessary provisions for the future.
Sometimes we did maybe more than other countries, but it was not sufficient. I must admit that.
AMANPOUR: Chancellor Merkel, thank you very much indeed. You’re welcome.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
