Germany’s new Ostpolitik and Russia: from strategic partnership to geopolitical competition?

The vagaries of Chancellor Merkel’s policy towards Russia over the past year, from friend and honest broker to stern enforcer of sanctions and then to prime mover of the Minsk-2 cease-fire and road map to peace have left observers in both Washington and Moscow confused over the direction of Germany’s new, undeclared Ostpolitik.

Our expert panel drawn from opposing views over Putin’s Russia and how to deal with it will attempt to explain this riddle: Prof. Dr. Hans Joachim Giessmann (Berghof Foundation & University of Hamburg), Dr. Sergey Lagodinsky (Heinrich Böll Stiftung), Prof. Dr. Richard Sakwa (University of Kent), and Prof. Dr. Stephen Walt (Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University).

Welcome & Introduction: Prof. Dr. Sven Biscop (Egmont)

The event will be chaired by Dr. Gilbert Doctorow ( East-West Accord).

View the Youtube video: “Panel discussion in the Egmont Palace, Brussels, 29 Sept 2015”.

(Photo credit: Egmont Institute)