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Now, with her appearance on Wednesday, she is also raising expectations about the consequences: she and Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) announced that the German partners of the EU and NATO want to find a “suitable joint reaction”. Other politicians also called for this immediately. But what exactly could the consequences be? And how far do you want to go?
When former Russian spy Sergej Skripal was poisoned with the Novitschok neurotoxin in Salisbury, Britain in 2018, the British rushed forward and there was a unique alliance: 25 Western states and NATO expelled a total of 150 Russian diplomats. Great Britain alone sent 23 representatives. Only eleven EU countries, including Austria, did not participate. The reason was to keep the channels of dialogue open.
However, Germany could proceed in a similar way to the British and propose personal sanctions, for example in the case of secret service employees, from a travel ban to freezing their accounts.
What will happen to Nord Stream 2?
Economic sanctions are practically out of the question. The EU has already imposed some in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea. And in Berlin you can see joint projects like Nord Stream 2 unrelated to everything. The German government wants to continue and complete the construction of the gas pipeline, as confirmed by the chancellor during a visit to the site on Wednesday.
The pipeline where Putin with a friend and former foreign minister Gerhard Schröder (SPD) has changed, gas should be off Siberia to Eastern Europe bomb. You will arrive in Lubmin, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Since the start of the project, there has been little joy in the EU, as disadvantages have been identified for the Eastern European countries. Criticism also came from the opposition in the German Bundestag.
After the latest events, the Greens are calling for the project to be canceled. “The obvious assassination attempt by the Kremlin mafia structures can no longer worry us, it must have real consequences,” said the leader of the parliamentary group Katrin Göring-Eckardt. It is no secret that there are reservations within the CDU / CSU. The external expert of the CDU, Norbert Röttgen, demanded with a view to possible reactions: “We must put everything to the test.” If the Nord Stream 2 gas project were to be completed now, that would be the ultimate confirmation and encouragement for Vladimir Putin to continue precisely this policy.
Little prospect of clarification
So there will probably be a backlash, but this is also related to the extent to which Russia can be shown to have been involved in the Navalny poisoning. Although they declared their willingness to participate in an investigation, experience has shown that Berlin cannot wait long. For example, after the alleged commissioned murder of a Georgian in Berlin’s Kleiner Tiergarten in 2019. Following a request, the Ministry of Justice noted that government agencies and German authorities had contacted more than a dozen Russian agencies times to get information. Not much has happened so far. The alleged perpetrator, a Russian, is in custody and is silent. The Kremlin rejects any involvement in the case. As in the case of Navalny. Nobody wants to know anything about the poisoning of a member of the opposition during an election campaign trip.
Vladimir Putin himself has yet to comment on the matter. Its spokesman, Dmitri Peskow, stressed that Moscow could not “react adequately” to the Berlin declaration at this time.
