Valdai Club

On Saturday, August 18, Angela Merkel will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Schloss Meseberg government residence.

According to polls, about 47% of German citizens are in favor to hold new elections. However, if they were held today, we would not see big changes, Valdai Club experts say.

The main task of the president of Germany during foreign visits is to uphold the current foreign policy strategy and core European values (democracy, human rights and the like).  It was clear from the very start that the president of Germany would not bring any new initiatives and would focus on this value-based approach. This is why the German side insisted on a working rather than official visit and a specific agenda: first he planned a dialogue with civil society representatives, then the transfer of the cathedral, and only after that a meeting with President Putin.

The visit of German Chancellor Angela Merkel to Russia confirmed the good state of Russian-German relations, Results of the visit draw quite an acceptable picture, which until recently was denied by most experts: we constantly hear about the crisis, but it turned out that not everything is so bad.

Rise of the radical right ADH and crisis of the so-called established parties, which in the past years traditionally were present in the federal parliament.


In the past week, several high-profile crimes took place in Germany, committed by either Muslim immigrants or their children. In most cases, there is no connection to ISIL, according to media reports. Are these crimes the result of Angela Merkel’s migration policy?

Only thing Merkel can be blamed for is that she promised to deal with the crisis, saying that they can handle it. When it became clear that the migration crisis was running out of control, the German government faced a wave of criticism.

Europe will change. Is this the conquest of Europe by the Asian barbarians? More likely it’s a survival test for the European Union, but a test that is not entirely natural.

Historically, personal relations between the top officials of Germany and Russia (earlier, the Soviet Union) have largely determined the nature and content of official cooperation between the two countries. This is largely due to the level of trust between leaders.