Time to repair Nord Stream?

Dear Reader,

First, the CDU abandoned its pre-election promise to fund state expenditures through the regular budget, adopting the SPD and Greens’ approach instead.

Now, it appears to be inching toward positions once confined to the political fringe.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, any discussion of buying Russian gas or questioning the sanctions regime was strictly off-limits in Germany’s political mainstream.

The Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), founded a year ago by its namesake leader, is essentially a single-issue party advocating for renewed Russian gas imports. Meanwhile, the AfD has campaigned on repairing the Nord Stream pipelines—sabotaged in 2022—to restart the flow of Russian fossil fuels.

In common discourse, such positions rendered both the BSW and AfD “pro-Putin,” even raising suspicions about whether their leadership had ties to Moscow.

During its time in opposition, the CDU presented itself as staunchly hawkish on Russia. In the early days of the war, Friedrich Merz called for an immediate embargo on Russian gas, while his party repeatedly attacked Olaf Scholz for hesitating to send critical military aid to Kyiv.

Against this backdrop, recent comments from Merz’s coalition negotiation team are impossible to ignore.