Talks in Geneva

An obligation for all to consider carefully what future we want in Germany, in Europe and in the world.

by Willy Wimmer*

(19 January 2022) Edit. In a few words, Willy Wimmer describes at the beginning of the year, with great lucidity, the weakness of Europe and the arbitrariness of the United States towards Russia, but also towards Europe.

This first working week of the New Year is a busy one. Our fate is on the table in Geneva, Brussels and Vienna when the representatives of Russia and the USA, Russia and the NATO countries as well as Russia and the other member states of the OSCE meet. There will obviously be no quick solutions, but an obligation for all to consider carefully what future we want in Germany and Europe.

Comments on the current situation in Europe:

Germany and France made it clear at the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008 that they do not want either Ukraine or Georgia to join NATO. The conference decision was the diplomatic form of rejection. The USA sees things differently. They want to keep the path to membership open for Ukraine and Georgia to assert their strategic interests and against the will of European states.

In 2015, after the coup in Ukraine, Germany and France imposed on Ukraine in the Minsk Agreement with Russia and Ukraine the obligation to grant special autonomy status to the territories in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine is undermining this commitment and refusing to implement autonomy. In this they are supported by the USA by means of arms deliveries.

The policy of the USA in NATO with the aim of obliging the member states of NATO to the global goals of the USA, which are contrary to the treaty, without being bound by the NATO treaty, has extremely negative effects on the legal validity of the NATO policy since the decision on the strategic concept of NATO from April 1999 in Washington. This decision is a breach of the NATO Treaty.

The USA is pursuing the declared aim of pushing Russia out of Europe. In doing so, they are destroying the spirit and content of the Charter of Paris of November 1990, which opened the way to cooperation between the signatory states with the involvement of the USA and the Soviet Union. A common house of Europe was to be the goal.

The exploratory talks these days in Geneva between the USA and Russia make it clear how far we are from the Charter of Paris and how close we are to a final fault line and a possible war in Europe.

The events in Kazakhstan, parallel to the talks in Geneva, strongly emphasise the implications for all of us of pursuing a “razor’s-edge” policy. The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has recently pointed out how states must treat other states if peace is to be maintained. The world would be better off if the USA had complied with this in the decades since the Charter of Paris.

* Willy Wimmer is a German lawyer and politician. From 1976 to 2009 he was a member of the Bundestag. In 1985 and 1992 he was spokesman for the CDU/CSU and subsequently Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Defence. From 1994 to 2000, he was Vice-President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Willy Wimmer regularly takes independent and staunch positions on issues related to Germany and international politics. He frequently publishes articles and books.

Source: https://seniora.org/politik-wirtschaft/gespraeche-in-genf, 10 January 2022
Reprint with kind permission of «seniora.org».

(Translation “Swiss Standpoint”)