Germany Merkel did not want Ukraine to join Nato quickly

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has published her memoirs as a book. In it, she also describes how she tried to thwart Ukraine's desire to join NATO quickly during her time in office.

At the time, Merkel feared a military response from Russia. The 70-year-old Christian Democrat reports on this in her memoirs with the programmatic title "Freedom", which will be published on Tuesday and from which "Die Zeit" has published an excerpt in advance.

Merkel's policy towards Ukraine is still held against her in Kiev today. At the decisive NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008, when a plan for the candidate status of Ukraine and Georgia was being discussed, the then Chancellor wrote: "I understood the desire of the Central and Eastern European countries to become members of NATO as quickly as possible." But: "The admission of a new member should not only bring them more security, but also Nato."

Minority of Ukraine in favor of accession

She saw risks with regard to the contractually secured presence of the Russian Black Sea Fleet on the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. "There had never been such an entanglement with Russian military structures in any NATO accession candidate before. What's more, only a minority of the Ukrainian population supported the country's membership of NATO at the time," she recalls.

In the end, a compromise was reached, but it came at a price, as Merkel writes: "The fact that Georgia and Ukraine did not receive a commitment for MAP status (candidate status) was a 'no' to their hopes. For Putin, the fact that Nato also promised them a general commitment to their membership was a yes to Nato membership for both countries, a declaration of war."

SDA