Last week, a conference of German and Russian partner cities took place in the western German city of Düren, Poland’s dziennik.pl online newspaper has reported.
It said the two-day event was attended by more than 820 participants, chiefly representatives from over 100 partner cities in Germany and Russia.
The event was used to undermine the European Union’s tough line toward Russia, according to the Polish website.
It said that Peter Franke, head of the Federal Union of German "West-East" Societies (BDWO), during a debate on German-Russian relations, urged German cities to partner up with cities in the Crimea peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, and suggested that these cities were fully Russian now.
During the same debate, the chairman of a Russian-German parliamentary group in Russia’s State Duma parliament, Pavel Zavalny, spoke against using the term "annexation" in the context of Russia’s occupation of Crimea, calling the word "propaganda" and "brainwashing," the Polish website reported.
The dziennik.pl website also said that the Russian politician was supported by a former Moscow correspondent for Germany’s public television broadcaster ARD, Gabriele Krone-Schmalz, who the online newspaper said criticised what she called the "Russophobic" approach of the German media.
Dziennik.pl said that Krone-Schmalz is the author of bestselling books in which she criticises the government in Kiev and the role of NATO countries in the context of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, while whitewashing Russia's actions.
The Polish website cited a German local newspaper, Aachener Zeitung, as reporting that some conference participants proposed that the German government be petitioned with a call for an abolition of all sanctions against Russia.
Meanwhile, German diplomats have promised to hold more similar events in the future to connect German and Russian societies, according to the Polish online newspaper.
The dziennik.pl website cited Michelle Müntefering, Minister of State at Germany's Federal Foreign Office, as saying at the conference in Düren that grassroots diplomacy serving cooperation between partner cities and nongovernmental organisations in Germany and Russia could help bridge differences between the two nations.
The Polish website also pointed to a spate of high-level meetings between German and Russian politicians in recent months.
It said that Germany’s top diplomat Heiko Maas has met with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov three times this year.
The two are scheduled to meet again in two weeks in Bonn during a summit of what is known as the St. Petersburg Dialogue, a semi-official discussion group between Russian and German business and cultural leaders.
The dziennik.pl website cited a Polish expert on Russian affairs—Marek Menkiszak of the Warsaw-based Centre for Eastern Studies—as commenting that while German diplomats are declaring they do not want to return to the kind of business-as-usual approach in relations with Russia, they are at the same time making it clear that Russia is an indispensable partner for solving global problems such as arms control.
The Polish website also reported that the German government of Angela Merkel played a key role in restoring Russia’s voting rights in the Council of Europe last week.
The German foreign minister later voiced satisfaction with the decision made by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg, dziennik.pl noted.
A Polish journalist wrote last month that Germany appeared to be starting a process to reset relations with Russia at the expense of ties with European allies.
Michael Kretschmer, governor of the German state of Saxony and a politician with the country’s governing Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said in a Twitter post last month that "Russia is a strategically important partner" for Germany and that "for a better relationship we need an end to the sanctions."
Kretschmer posted the tweet after meeting President Vladimir Putin at an economic conference in St. Petersburg, a Russian port city on the Baltic Sea.
At the same conference, Germany’s Economics Minister Peter Altmaier signed a landmark declaration of economic cooperation with his Russian counterpart Maxim Oreshkin as part of efforts to boost bilateral business.
Pro-Kremlin Russian media were cited as reporting at the time that this was the first such agreement since the start of the conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014.
(gs)
Source: dziennik.pl