Dispute over sanctions
Green Group leader warns of “Russia-Connection” in CDU
Updated on 30.03.2025 – 06:41 a.m.Reading time: 2 min.
CDU-Vice Kretschmer sympathizes in the middle of the coalition negotiations with a loosening of the Russia sanctions. The Greens call for an intervention by party leader Merz.
The Green Group leader Britta Haßelmann has sharply criticized the statements by the Saxon Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer for loosening the Russia sanctions. “While Putin continues to throw bombs on Ukraine, Prime Minister Kretschmer is re-accumulating to the warmonger,” she told the German Press Agency. Haßelmann asked the CDU chairman Friedrich Merz to “process the Moscow Connection as soon as possible in his party”.
The deputy CDU boss Michael Kretschmer had criticized the categorical no Germany and other European countries to relax the sanctions against Russia in an interview by the German Press Agency. “It fell from time completely and doesn’t suit what the Americans are doing,” he said. “If you realize that you weaken yourself more than the other person, then you have to think about whether it’s all right.”
Haßelmann said that a loosening of the punitive measures imposed in the Russian attack on the Russian attack on Ukraine would be a serious mistake. “This would also make it out of Europe’s common action.” From the CDU leadership, the Greens faction leader asked for distances of statements such as that of Kretschmer. “Putin-Freunde” such as the Saxon Prime Minister, the CDU member of the Bundestag Thomas Bareiß or the deputy CDU parliamentary group leader in North Rhine-Westphalia, Jan Heinisch, and her Russia course should play no role in the coalition negotiations.
“Friedrich Merz and the top of the CDU can no longer duck away and finally have to take a clear position to revive the Moscow Connection. The time to marry the topic is over,” said the Greens parliamentary group leader.
Like Merz, Kretschmer is one of the ten Union members in the central negotiation group of coalition talks with the SPD. Bareiß and Heinisch are in specialist working groups-Bareiß in the infrastructure, Heinisch in the for energy. Both had noticed statements about Russia during the negotiations.
Heinisch had said “Politico”: “If one day a fair and safe peace is found, then you have to be able to talk about the purchase of Russian gas again”. Bareiß had written to rumors about a reactivation of the Baltic Sea pipeline Nord Stream 2 on LinkedIn: If peace prevailed again, the relationships normalized, the Embargos would go back sooner or later, “of course gas can flow again, maybe this time in a pipeline under US control”. This is a decision of the market.
