Posted on 01/16/2006 1:16:11 PM PST by wolf78
Chancellor Angela Merkel's first visit to Moscow as German leader has heralded a cooler, more businesslike approach to Russia compared with the unquestioning friendship displayed by her predecessor Gerhard Schröder.
Gone are the days of public cuddling and sauna visits that have marked relations between Russian and German leaders since the fall of the Iron Curtain. Germany's new chancellor, Angela Merkel, signalled a decidedly no-nonsense approach during her inaugural visit to Moscow on Monday that reflected concern in Berlin about an excessive dependence on Russian gas and Russian human rights abuses.
In a break with tradition that is unlikely to have delighted the Kremlin, Merkel invited representatives of human rights organizations, the media and other associations for a reception at the German embassy in Moscow on Monday afternoon. Her predecessor Gerhard Schröder would have been more likely to digest his lunch on a sleigh ride with Putin than meet critics of the hardline Russian leader.
The two men developed a close friendship that included birthday visits and a shared Christmas, and formed the basis of an axis between the two countries that was viewed with suspicion especially by the former Soviet satellite states wedged in between them including Poland and the Baltic states.
Putin even reportedly helped arrange Schröder's adoption of a three-year-old Russian orphan, Viktoria. The friendship prompted the chancellor to refrain from publicly criticizing Putin's domestic political record, which included shutting down independent TV stations, military crackdowns in Chechnya and what human rights groups have called the selective use of laws to remove potential political rivals such as Yukos oil baron Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
On the plus side, the two men did symbolize growing reconciliation between the enemies of the two world wars.
[...]
(Excerpt) Read more at service.spiegel.de ...
Merkel, in addition to speaking fluent English, is fluent in Russian having grown up in East Germany where knowledge of Russian was "obligatorisch" among the educated classes.
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As far as I know, she's a bit more proficient in Russian than in English, which she understands nonetheless. Unlike Schroeder who speaks neither English nor any other foreign language adequately.
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