Eldar Mamedov
This week, Politico scooped the news: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, before meeting NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Berlin, informally voiced opposition to Ukraine’s prospects for an alliance membership, suggesting instead a “Finlandization” option — a neutral status like Finland maintained between NATO and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and for the subsequent three decades between NATO and Russia.
According to the report, his suggestion was mulled amid talk in Berlin of setting up a “contact group” together with China, India, and Brazil in search of a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine. This idea was not raised during the meeting with Rutte as it does not yet represent a consolidated position of the German government — an unwieldy coalition of Scholz’s war-weary Social Democrats, ardently pro-Ukraine Greens, and fiscal hawks in the liberal Free Democrats party (FDP).
The fact, however, that the Finlandization option is even discussed now shows how far the debate in Europe has shifted from the “whatever it takes for Ukraine’s victory” mantra to a more sober assessment of the realities on the ground: even The Economist, a staunch supporter of Ukraine’s cause from the outset, now accepts that it’s not a victory but mere survival as an independent state that is at stake for Ukraine.
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