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Berlin should repair ties with Moscow and steer clear of the Ukraine conflict, a senior party member has said

FILE PHOTO. Markus Frohnmaier. ©  Getty Images / PA / Jan-Philipp Strobel

Germany’s interests do not match those of its “Ukrainian partners,” and Berlin should pursue a “Germany first” policy, deputy head of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party’s parliamentary group, Markus Frohnmaier, has said.

Frohnmaier made the remarks on Wednesday in an interview with Rossiya 24, suggesting that Berlin should admit its economic woes largely stem from breaking ties with Russia and try to fix them.

“We are genuinely interested in normalizing relations with Russia,” Frohnmaier stated. “We simply have to acknowledge that energy prices for industry, as well as for private individuals in Germany, are now too high.” 

Berlin, should it manage to display the “political will,” could “achieve a lot,” including the restoration of the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines, he suggested. 

“The interests of our Ukrainian partners, for instance, do not match those of Germany. And I call for a final return to a policy that puts Germany’s interests first,” he stressed.

Germany should not get involved in the Ukraine conflict in any fashion, Frohnmaier said, arguing that it should not even consider deploying its military since most Germans strongly oppose such an idea. The politician also lamented that Berlin had abandoned its longstanding “tradition” of not supplying weapons to war zones.

Berlin has asserted itself as one of the key backers of Kiev in the conflict against Moscow, which has been raging since February 2022. Chancellor Friedrich Merz has repeatedly rejected the idea that Ukraine should make any concessions to Russia to settle the conflict, calling upon the West to pursue the “economic exhaustion” of Moscow instead.  

However, Merz admitted last month that Germany is experiencing a “structural crisis” rather than just temporary “weakness.” The country was in recession last year and is expected to show no growth this year, according to IMF projections. 

Still, the Merz government is planning to cut social spending and take on large loans to sustain military expansion and weapons deliveries to Ukraine. While Berlin argues those measures are necessary to deter Russia, Moscow maintains that it poses no threat to Germany.