Europe

Home page

Europe

Ruling party leader: "Germany should make cooperation with Russia a policy goal"

12 June 2019 15:50 (UTC +04:00)

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the leader of Germany's ruling Christian Democratic Union, said on Wednesday that she considered it right to maintain political ties and continue cooperating with Russia, which she said was just too big a neighbour to ignore, APA reports citing Sputnik.

"Even during the Cold War, we always maintained contacts with then the Soviet Union. I consider it right. From my point of view, it is not at all reprehensible if a prime minister, no matter from what political camp, also participates in conferences in Russia and has meetings with the Russian president. Russia is too big a neighbor for us to just ignore it. Therefore, we should ... make cooperation and maintaining relations [with Russia] our policy goal," Kramp-Karrenbauer said at a conference, streamed on Die Welt newspaper's website.

At the same time, she stressed Germany needed "a clear position and a clear signal that, in any case, we are able to protect ourselves against ... attempts to destabilise us."