DAccording to Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the transatlantic community has proven its resilience “in the danger” of the Russian attack on Ukraine. Steinmeier warned that the current conflict should not be understood as a “simple us-versus-them” of the free West against the rest. If the West wants to be more than a point of the compass, then it must be “principled, of course”, but also an “open project, open to people in all parts of the world, to regions with different histories, to different experiences and different religions”.
Steinmeier spoke in Berlin at the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the German-American network “Atlantic Bridge”. He said that “nothing is as serious as Russia’s attack on Ukraine” for Europe’s security and regretted that “with all our efforts we have not been able to prevent this war”. The Federal President went on to say, “we mustn’t delude ourselves,” that an end to the war was “not in sight at the moment,” and that the end “can’t be wished for.” Russia is leading an invading army, Ukraine is defending “its territory, its independence, freedom and sovereignty”. Russia can “determine the path to the end of this war” any day, but Russian President Vladimir Putin is “buried in his imperial obsession”.
Steinmeier also warned of internal struggles in democratic societies on both sides of the Atlantic. The process of polarization is “in full swing” in European societies, but in America it is “definitely” still “significantly more advanced”. The Federal President said that he “trusted the American system of checks and balances”. Referring to the forthcoming elections in the United States, he said that a shock to American democracy “would also affect us and would result in a credibility problem for all liberal societies in the West”.
It was announced on Thursday that Steinmeier is to be honored this year with the Henry A. Kissinger Prize, which is awarded annually by the American Academy, a transatlantic educational institution in Berlin. Every year, the prize honors personalities in international diplomacy who have taken on the cultivation of transatlantic relations in a special way. Former Federal Chancellors Helmut Schmidt, Helmut Kohl and Angela Merkel as well as former Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker are among the previous winners. The Office of the Federal President announced that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would hold the eulogy for Steinmeier at the ceremony in New York.
