The Melnyk incident, to put it that way, is not a state affair. The dispute between the Ukrainian ambassador and the Federal President over the question of whether he organized a benefit concert “only with Russian soloists” is not the essential point.
Instead, there is another, much larger question waiting behind it, and that is a real matter of state, it concerns us all and therefore also our head of state: Why is it that politicians, supported by the majority, wanted to trust someone like Vladimir Putin for so long, and what follows from this?
The answer has two levels, at least. And if there is anyone who can pave the way to answers, then it is the one who has helped to shape domestic and foreign policy like few others in recent decades: Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Head of the Chancellery under Gerhard Schröder at the time of Nord Stream I, Foreign Minister at the time when Minsk I and Minsk II were being negotiated with Russia and Ukraine, who originally invented the Normandy format for the negotiations and knows the Russian leaders almost inside out.
In short: Obligation arises from national political responsibility. Function and person go together here.
[Alle aktuellen Nachrichten zum russischen Angriff auf die Ukraine bekommen Sie mit der Tagesspiegel-App live auf ihr Handy. Hier für Apple- und Android-Geräte herunterladen.]
For his second term in office, the Federal President has now decided to build a bridge to the citizens and to have an impact on society at large. That fits. The sentence from the Corona period “Let’s take care of each other” can have an intellectually expanded meaning.
Because that also includes undertaking, in a completely changed world, to define standards for Germany’s role in the battle of forces. At this turning point, a break in time, an epochal change. Namely, in what Willy Brandt already called the “big conversation of society”, with experts, but not only, but also with the citizens.
Cooperation with autocrats requires more explanation
Putin is challenging us to do so. Because on the basis of value-based foreign policy, which the federal government wants to make explicit, cooperation with autocrats is all the more in need of explanation. For example, it may well be that society will have to make sacrifices.
The notions of “change through trade” and “change through rapprochement” also need to be overhauled in terms of their successes. So it’s about standards that hold up, especially in these times and for everything else to come. Seen in this way, Putin is just a cipher. She may soon also be called Xi Jinping, for the reassessment of the relationship with autocratic China.
Germany, as the second largest donor to the United Nations, as one of the largest contributors to NATO and as the fourth largest economy in the world, is challenged from the top. The Ukrainian President asked in the Bundestag what historical responsibility is worth to us. This part of the answer is clear: Responsibility becomes an obligation – including the obligation to assure oneself, which last but not least.
The Federal President can, no, should demonstrate it in his function as the “integration agency of the state”. Whoever asks questions and retrospectively questions their own actions has an integrative effect; that helps with foresight. Ethos emerges from orientation. Germany needs courage for both.
