Merkel defends her opposition to Ukraine’s, Georgia’s joining NATO in 2008

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has defended her opposition to granting Georgia and Ukraine a NATO Membership Action Plan back in 2008 in Bucharest  in her recent interview for Deutsche Welle.

Merkel claimed that supporting the countries’ aspirations could be “harmful,” noting that the Bucharest declaration, which pledged the future membership for the two countries, “provoked the first war in Europe in the 21st century,” referring to Russia’s war in Georgia back in August 2008.

In April, the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hit Merkel and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, suggesting their move had been a clear “miscalculation” that emboldened Russia.

In Tuesday’s interview, Merkel said that if NATO had granted them membership, Russian President Vladimir Putin could have caused “enormous damage in Ukraine.” As it was, Russia invaded Georgia less than six months after this declaration in Bucharest, instigating Europe’s first war in the 21st century.

Merkel also cited systemic corruption issues in Ukraine as reasons to block their membership.

“President Zelenskyy is bravely fighting against corruption, but at the time, Ukraine really was a country governed by oligarchs, and so there you can’t just say ‘ok tomorrow we’ll take them into NATO,'” she said.

“It was not the Ukraine that we know from today. It was a Ukraine that was very, very divided politically,” she said. “It was not a stable democracy. And when you accept a country into a NATO — and the Membership Action Plan is the clear precursor to that — you have to know that we are then prepared to really defend such a country if there is an attack.”

“Secondly, I was very sure … that Putin is not going to just let that happen. From his perspective, that would be a declaration of war.”