The beginning of the XXI century. marked by significant changes in the modern system of international relations. An important direction of these changes is the process of European integration. It became particularly active at the end of the 90s of the 20th century. Then the process of expansion of the European Union to the East was determined. In 1998, negotiations on the accession of Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Malta, and Cyprus to the EU were initiated. In 1999, similar negotiations began with Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. However, the issue of conducting relevant negotiations with Turkey was not determined. The majority of the European political elite believes that an Islamic country has no place in the European Union. At the same time, others believe that the accession of Turkey will expand the EU's geopolitical and economic opportunities. So, in general, the civilizational boundaries of the newly expanded Europe were determined, the boundary of which is the western border of the former USSR in its configuration as of 1939, i.e. without the Baltic states.

The countries that according to some definitions belong to the «new Eastern Europe» - Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, the European part of the Russian Federation - actually found themselves outside the borders of the new Europe. This stimulated the emergence of a number of problems. They are mainly related to the formation of the actual civilizational, social, economic and political division line in Europe. As a result, certain problems appeared.

In the early 90s of the XX century radical social transformations took place in Eastern Europe, which eventually led to a new unique situation - the collapse of the world system of socialism and, with it, the disappearance of a number of federal states - the Federal Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Federal Republic of Czechoslovakia. Eventually, the collapse of the USSR and the completion of the process of unification of East and West Germany became symbols of the end of the Cold War era in Europe. At that time, it seemed that the Old Continent, for which O. Spengler predicted twilight and gradual decline, finally received a decisive impulse that would ensure the unity of all of Europe.

But already in the early 90s of the 20th century. serious skeptical opinions appeared regarding the geopolitical boundaries of the great Europe. The traditional concept of Atlanticism of the Cold War era saw their borders from Brest of France to Brest of Belarus. As part of the well-known treaty on the reduction of conventional types of weapons, signed in the fall of 1990, that is, during the time of the existence of the USSR, the European security space was defined from the Atlantic to the Urals. Instead, the geographical space for which the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is responsible extends to the former Soviet Central Asian republics, and with the collapse of the USSR to the newly independent Central Asian states. At the same time, from a geopolitical point of view, Europe is only a peninsula of Eurasia, control over which is key to maintaining the stability of the unipolar world model led by the United States.

Ukraine, which during the first decade of its independence persistently sought a balance of its own interests in Europe and Eurasia, as the process of expansion of the European Union and the North Atlantic Alliance reached its final stage, found itself in an interesting and difficult geopolitical situation. On the one hand, the European Union is ready to grant Ukraine the status of a «special neighbor» with the prospect of starting negotiations on acquiring the status of associate membership in an uncertain time frame. By the way, Turkey, for example, has had this status since 1963, but it has not yet helped it change its civilizational orientation and finally start negotiations on joining the EU. On the other hand, the economic interests and political orientation of the Ukrainian ruling elite push Ukraine to try to revive the integration process aimed at forming a common economic space of the CIS countries. In addition, since 2000, Russia has persistently pursued a policy of strengthening unifying tendencies in the post-Soviet space. In the end, the activation of this process objectively strengthens the role of Russia as an important regional power center. This trend was confirmed by the rapprochement of Russia, Germany and France in the process of opposing the American plans for war against Iraq. Cooperation with Russia on a new basis allows Germany to regain political influence in the entire Eurasian space. Russia's ties with France open the prospect of resolving the contradictions between Germany and France over leadership in Europe.

In the end, the Iraq crisis dealt the most serious blow to the common foreign and defense policy of the EU since the Kosovo epic of 1999. The US position on the war against Iraq was supported by the current EU members, Spain, Italy, Denmark and Portugal, in addition to Great Britain. It became clear that in the event of EU expansion to 25 member states, agreeing on a common foreign and defense policy will be even more difficult, especially in times of crisis. Some political scientists predict that it will be impossible at all.

Under these circumstances, finding allies who support the position of «old Europe» is an important matter. Much depends on Russia in this regard. For the first time since the Suez crisis of 1956, Moscow had the opportunity to effectively play on European-American contradictions. Since after September 11, 2001, President Putin unconditionally supported the United States in the fight against terrorism, it seemed that this course would not change. But Russia did not receive any profit from its holding. Washington did not even manage to take a purely symbolic step and cancel the Jackson-Venik amendment. No guarantees of taking into account the interests of Russian oil concerns in Iraq after Saddam were given either.

On March 5, 2003, in Paris, the foreign ministers of Russia, France, and Germany announced their intention to block the adoption of a resolution that would open the way to war against Iraq. A similar position was taken by China, which, in view of the acute crisis on the Korean peninsula, the deployment of the American missile defense system over Taiwan, and the uncertainty of the situation in Afghanistan, has its own claims against the United States.

So, the US attempt to demonstrate, according to Brzezinski, who is the master of Eurasia, provoked the formation of an even temporary, but powerful Eurasian situational coalition: Paris - Berlin - Moscow - Beijing. American geostrategists could only dream of this in their nightmares. Russia, which has long been buried in the ruins of Eurasia, unexpectedly got a chance for an independent geopolitical game.

On December 6, 2001, the fourth intergovernmental Ukrainian-German consultations took place in Kyiv. Chancellor G. Schroeder even put forward the idea of developing a schedule of negotiations regarding Ukraine's acquisition of the status of an associate member of the European Union. Germany expressed hope for democratic elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. But according to the results of the parliamentary elections held on March 31, 2002, no political force was found that would win a convincing victory. Then Ukraine entered the process of agreeing on the redistribution of power, the formation of a new coalition government, the complex process of creating a parliamentary majority, and the initiation of constitutional reform by President L. Kuchma.

The intermission in the Ukrainian-German dialogue was interrupted on June 10, 2002, a few months before the elections in Germany. Then, in St. Petersburg, L. Kuchma, V. Putin, and G. Shroder signed a joint statement regarding the need to create an international consortium to manage the network of Ukrainian gas pipelines.

Even then, the mentioned idea caused sharp internal political criticism in Ukraine. The opposition emphasized that the loss of state control over the network of pipelines, which bring a significant share of state budget revenues, would mean the authorities' willingness to trade the last resource. The authorities, in turn, emphasized the need to attract foreign investment in order to modernize this very network. It was also necessary to take into account certain geopolitical factors related to the needs of Ukraine's integration into the European energy market. The model seemed optimal - to connect suppliers and consumers of Russian natural gas. In this way, interested parties would receive reliable guarantees, which is especially important in view of the preparation of the EU energy market for the liberalization that should occur after 2010.

At the same time, the preoccupation of the red-green coalition after the victory in the September 2002 elections to the Bundestag with internal affairs related to the growth of unemployment and the actual economic recession, the concentration of German policy at that time on the Iraqi problem and the deterioration of relations with the USA pushed the German-Ukrainian bilateral dialogue on the sidelines of the diplomatic process. The intensity of political contacts has decreased. The German side expressed dissatisfaction with the preservation of bureaucratic barriers that prevent the implementation of already reached agreements, and on the other hand, do not provide normal conditions for German business in Ukraine.

Certain changes in the German position occurred after the signing on February 23, 2003 of the statement of the presidents of Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan on the intention to prepare by September 2003 a draft agreement on the creation of a free trade zone with the possible prospect of its transformation into a common economic space. In the end, finding a balance between eastern and western vectors of Ukrainian foreign policy could hypothetically contribute to the elimination of new distribution lines in Europe.

The «Grand Coalition» led by A. Merkel, consisting of the Christian Democrats, the Christian Social Union, and the Social Democrats (2005-2009), balanced between the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian dimensions of Germany's foreign policy. After all, the world economic crisis, which began in the fall of 2008, actualized the search for new markets and partners, the key of which was China. A well-known researcher of the history and current state of German foreign policy, H. Schollgen, notes that the Christian-liberal coalition consisting of the CDU-CSU and the Free Democrats (2009-2013) tried to make German-Chinese trade and economic relations as pragmatic as possible, free from the theme of protection human rights The following legislative periods of the «big coalitions» rule (2013-2021) were determined by the need to respond to acute international security problems and the destabilization of the global system of international relations.

On November 24, 2021, a coalition agreement between the Social Democratic Party of Germany (party colors red), the Green Party (respectively green party color) and the Free Democratic Party (yellow party color) was presented in Berlin. The German press traditionally called this coalition a «lighthouse» based on party colors. In early December, the Bundestag officially voted to approve the composition of the new government headed by Social Democrat Olaf Scholz. Representatives of the Green Party received important government positions. Anna-Lena Burbok became the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Robert Habek headed the Ministry of Economic Policy. The leader of the Free Democratic Party, Christian Lindner, has been appointed as the Minister of Finance. The content of the coalition agreement is a compromise version of the pre-election programs of the subjects of the new coalition. The Green Party managed to fix the tasks of radicalization of environmental policy. German industry considers free democrats to be a certain counterbalance to this policy. It is they who preserved the functions of legitimizing «green initiatives» through their financing. In order to achieve a coalition agreement, Lindner was forced to agree to a gradual increase in the level of taxation on the sale of gasoline, which is de facto a markup on all other goods and services. The idea of transitioning from diesel cars to electric cars was not a surprise for the German automotive industry.

It is significant that, unlike the French, who promote the idea of recognizing nuclear energy as «green» in the European Union, the German greens insist on the final closure of German nuclear power plants. It is proposed to finance renewable sources of electricity more actively. Coalition compromises were also reached on issues of security and European integration. In particular, it is planned to increase funding for the needs of the Bundeswehr. In the context of debt financing of the countries of the European Union, the free democrats achieved a more disciplined fiscal and financial policy. However, it is already clear that solving these tasks at the same time will be very difficult. The coronavirus pandemic radically increased the deficits of national budgets, as well as the budget of the European Union as a whole. So the persons of Burbock and Lindner will be quite irritating at the EU level for the policy they have undertaken to pursue.

The creation of the German «traffic light coalition» had a loud international resonance. France was forced to take a time-out regarding strategic activity in the Franco-German tandem until the conclusion of its own parliamentary and presidential elections in the summer of 2022. Poland and Hungary are wary of the announced liberal European course of the new German coalition. However, Russia was the most wary of the German «lightning coalition». The Green Party and the Free Democrats have traditionally been critical of the nature of the Russian authoritarian regime. At the same time, the Green Party opposed the certification of the Northern Stream-2 gas pipeline. The coalition agreement provides for a pragmatic approach to this issue. Most likely, the money invested in the gas pipeline will not be sunk at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. But the greens have an opportunity to show their ecological principles on this issue. It is worth paying attention to the personal factor. Burbok will be a more uncomfortable interlocutor for Lavrov. An analysis of the content of the coalition agreement proves that German-Russian relations in the coming years will not be as pragmatic as under Chancellor Merkel. They are likely to be more reminiscent of the «controlled containment» that characterizes modern American-Russian relations. More often than usual, in the German-Russian dialogue from Berlin, there will be criticism of Moscow for violating human rights, for its aggressive foreign policy, for the use of energy weapons and migrants in hybrid wars. So in this sense, German foreign policy will become more consistent and principled. It is expected that this may have a positive effect on the development trends of Ukrainian-German relations. This does not mean that German investments will flow into the Ukrainian economy.

This will be possible only in case of a radical improvement of the investment climate in Ukraine and greater predictability of its tax policy. But in return, there will be more opportunities for closer cooperation in the field of environmentally friendly technologies. Such a mutually beneficial project could be the construction of waste incineration plants initially, at least in the largest cities of Ukraine. A «hydrogen breakthrough» in this sense is less likely, because currently existing technologies for hydrogen production require the burning of other fossil energy carriers. But the Ukrainian side should work with the German side in this direction from the first day of the new German government's work. It is also worth remembering that Germany's foreign policy is coalitional in terms of the influence on its formation of ruling and opposition parties. The «Traffic Light Coalition» received a powerful opposition in the Bundestag, albeit ideologically diverse. These are the Christian Democrats, Alternative for Germany and the Left Party, which will restrain any radical steps, in particular, on the international arena. Therefore, only in the case of the continuation of direct Russian military aggression against Ukraine, it is possible to count on a review of the German position regarding the sale of lethal weapons. The new coalition plans to radically modernize the weapons of the German Bundeswehr, so it is possible that the German military industry in general will be less active in the international arms market. In general, Ukraine can be cautiously optimistic about the new German ruling coalition. It is impossible to expect something fantastically extraordinary from her. But there are many new opportunities to achieve a positive result for Ukraine, of course, in the case of daily consistent work on promising joint projects.

In 2023, Germany became the second supplier of arms to Ukraine after the United States. This caused a debate in German society. The popularity of the right-wing populist party «Alternative for Germany», which proposes leaving the European Union, has been growing steadily. At the beginning of January 2024, the «Left Party» split and the creation of the «Sarah Wagenknecht Union» was announced, which called for an end to German military aid to Ukraine. On February 9, 2024, Chancellor O. Scholz visited Washington. The USA transferred to the EU the resolution of the issue of military and financial aid to Ukraine in the war with the Russian Federation. It is believed that the war strengthens the right-wing political spectrum in the domestic politics of Ukraine, which is contrary to the domestic political trends in Germany. The USA and Germany opposed the invitation of Ukraine to NATO. The agrarian and raw material economy of Ukraine does not correspond to the established division of labor in the European Union.

So, can the Federal Republic of Germany be a partner, competitor or opponent of the Intermarium project?

Most likely, depending on the current international political situation, the Federal Republic of Germany can be a partner, competitor and opponent of this project. It will depend on the dynamics of internal political changes in Germany. The escalation of Russian aggression against Ukraine on February 24, 2022 destroyed the historical and traditional pro-Russian policy of German elites. But the accumulation of economic problems as a result of the war actualizes the dynamics of internal political changes in Germany. Supporters of the refusal of aid to Ukraine and agreements on the division of spheres of influence in Eastern Europe are the party «Alternative for Germany» and the left party «Union of Sarah Wagenknecht», which was formed in January 2024. The growing popularity of these parties in the new federal states (the former GDR) may change the domestic political situation in Germany during 2024, when elections to a number of Landtags in the East German states are due to be held. The internal political and foreign political identity of the new East German lands 34 years after the reunification of Germany and the GDR is an empirical fact. This can shape the dualistic foreign policy strategies of Germany regarding the project of European integration and the hypothetical project of the Mediterranean.

Andrii Martynov - expert of the Intermarium Institute