On their return from their trip to Moscow, Michael von der Schulenburg and Ruth Firmenich, MEPs for the BSW, stated:
In Moscow, we had the opportunity to meet high-ranking representatives from the worlds of politics, academia and culture. We held talks with Anton Kobyakov, advisor to the President; Alexey Gromyko, Director of the European Institute at the Academy of Sciences, and his deputy Vladislav Belov; Andrei Klimov, a leading member of the ruling United Russia party, Mikhail Shvydkoy, the government’s cultural representative, Sergei Karaganov, the government’s foreign policy adviser, Fyodor Lukyanov, Chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy and Scientific Director of the Valdai Club, and Daniil Bisslinger, an adviser to the President. In addition, we spoke with journalists and media representatives and attended a performance at the Moscow Music Theatre and the opening event of the Moscow Jazz Festival.
The aim of our trip was to gain an impression of whether and to what extent it might be possible to establish new formats for dialogue between Germany and Russia. We undertook the trip with great concern regarding the ever-worsening confrontation and the increasing refusal on the part of Germany and the EU to engage in dialogue with Russia; which makes an escalation of the war in Ukraine into a conflagration across Europe seem increasingly likely. Especially in times of conflict, it is of fundamental importance to maintain channels of communication as a prerequisite for the search for possible solutions.
The unanimous impression from our discussions in Russia is that the situation is extremely serious, but that there is a willingness on the Russian side to re-engage more actively in dialogue. All our interlocutors were open to the idea of using talks at a sub-governmental level to lay the groundwork for a joint exchange. We regard this as a very positive sign.
It is certainly hardly to be expected that such talks will lead to a resolution of the serious conflicts in the short term. However, exchange and understanding regarding the differing interests—however far apart they may currently seem—are indispensable for even being able to arrive at possible solutions and to counteract the ever-increasing danger of the conflict escalating.
We will now work on developing initial ideas for a dialogue format. The aim of such talks should be to lay the groundwork for strengthening contact once again and to reach an understanding regarding lines of conflict, potential points of convergence, and prospects on our shared continent.
We undertook this trip in our personal capacity as Members of the European Parliament.
