Alexander Rahr Quotations

There is mounting anger in Western business circles over the lack of radical liberal reforms and the failure to establish a functioning legal system.

Merkel has a certain coolness towards Russia, after all she grew up in what she would view as an occupied East Germany. But German business interests make good relations essential and she can't ignore that reality.

Big German companies with a track record in Russia have sniffed new opportunity as oil cash grows.

There will not be the focus on Russia which under Schroeder played a big role in German foreign policy.

Right now, we have a gas war in Eastern Europe. A politician like him would have to be in the middle of all these quarrels.

The new member states have a completely different view of Russia, understandably. But they, too, have to sooner or later start defining what kind of relationship they want with Russia. This is something Germany has been trying to do since 1945.

Germany's alliance with Russia was not just conceived as a commercial deal, but as a way to integrate Russia into Europe. This could be in jeopardy, if the gas dispute continues.

Gorbachev was literally hated in the 1990s. He was seen as the destroyer of the Soviet Union, the destroyer of everything that generations and generations had built. But much of that was fueled in the '90s, as it played into the hands of Boris Yeltsin, his successor in government.

The energy alliance Germany is forging with Russia has the same philosophy behind it. To find a way to bind this huge Russian neighbor into a common European space, develop interdependent structures and ties, create some kind of trust, and then also benefit from easy access to the Russian gas fields which are at Europe's front door.