Berlin's ongoing presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States could not have come at a more crucial time. Faced with increasing regional uncertainty in light of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, Germany must now take decisive action to ensure continued high-level cooperation in the area.

On July 1st, Germany took over the presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS). Cooperation among the states bordering the Baltic Sea has become more important in view of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Currently the CBSS has ten member states plus the European Commission. In March 2022, Russia’s membership, as well as the observer status of Belarus was suspended by the other member states from CBSS activities while in May it decided to withdraw from the council. Ukraine has an observer mandate with increasing strategic importance in the CBSS.

The low priority of foreign policy generally, and Eastern policy particularly, could be observed during the debates shaping the recent German election. The new government will have a chance to prove its position on Ostpolitik amid multiple conflicts in Eastern Europe that threaten peace and co-operation. One thing is certain, the old Ostpolitik does not provide European solutions to the challenges faced in the region today.

Between 1969 and 1989, the foreign policy of the Federal Republic of Germany aimed to reach a mutual settlement with the Soviet Union and its satellites. This policy began with the government of Willy Brandt and quickly became known as Ostpolitik. It superseded the “Hallstein Doctrine” implemented under Konrad Adenauer.

Despite individual points of light from the 1968 Prague Spring, when Michal Reiman was a companion of Alexander Dubček, the path to democracy and freedom was not a straight one, but paved with control and arrests by the Soviet regime. Nevertheless, the contemporary witnesses were important carriers of the cycles of change.

With the coup of the Bolsheviks in October 1917, the communist party seized power in the Russian Empire for the first time. The revolutionary spark of the party in power in the Soviet Union did not, as Lenin and later Stalin intended, spread across Europe to shape societies. Instead, contacts to Moscow via Berlin to Vladivostok were continued as an instrument ranging from equality to state terror. The so-called great terror in 1937/38 was marked by excesses of socialist violence.

On December 13th 2020 an ecumenical service was held in Berlin Cathedral to pay tribute to the protesters in Belarus. It was followed by a political debate, which focused on a new European Eastern policy, a new Ostpolitik. Through the organisation of these two events, the churches showed, once again, their eagerness to engage in building bridges for the way to peace and democracy.

Instead of encouraging co-operation through the opening of potential windows for partnership, which was the guideline of the previous Ostpolitik, a new European Ostpolitik should take the concerns, direct neighbourhood and historic experiences of the more recently added EU member states seriously by developing and implementing a new strategy of partnership. The goal should not be about developing new dividing lines but establishing new platforms of communication.

Germany’s international relations are already prioritising the development of a new European Ostpolitik well in advance of July 2020, when the country is slated to assume the presidency of the Council of the European Union for six months. European Ostpolitik will likely be translated into more concrete policies during the 18-month-long rotating trio presidency of the Council of the EU that includes successive terms led by Germany, Portugal, and Slovenia, respectively.