Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel had a 50-minute phone call with Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko yesterday, discussing a proposal (not specified in the news reports) by the latter for the de-escalation of the refugee situation at the Polish-Belarusian border. The two leaders also discussed ways of having humanitarian aid reach the refugees. Both said they will talk again soon.
Merkel’s initiative stirred up the radical pro-sanction camp in German politics. Green Party politician Omid Nouripur spoke of a “devastating signal” and accused Merkel of departing from EU solidarity by recognizing Lukashenko’s dictatorship with this phone call.
At a event sponsored by the daily paper Sueddeutsche Zeitung in Munich yesterday, Olaf Scholz, generally-expected to become the new German Chancellor, made a geopolitical show of demanding “clear and harsh sanctions” against Lukashenko, whom he charged with being “a really bad dictator,” having no legitimacy whatsoever. Scholz called for European support for the “democratic process” in Belarus, warning EU leaders against playing by the rules of Lukashenko and the “human traffickers.”
