“Petersburg Dialogue” is an annual meeting ground of Russian and German establishment and one of the cornerstones of bilateral cooperation. It is widely considered to be a political dimension of effective economic cooperation, developing in the past decade. Despite the fact that the EU is now facing severe financial instability, the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation expects sharp rise in the turnover between Russia and Germany up to 80 billion dollars. During the meeting on the 15th of November 2012 the partners struck 10 new treaties in various key industries and mapped out a project of visa abolition agreement.

The differences in approaches of the sovereign states practicing continuity in foreign relations are quite natural. Nations rely on their history, traditions and experience in realpolitik. Any discussion in this field presupposes equitable dialogue, not boring lectures in instructional tone. It is regrettable that difficult pre-election campaigning of CDU/CSU and the federal chancellor Angela Merkel suddenly triggered deep “concerns” about human rights issues in Russia among some members of German delegation.

The viability and authority of “Petersburg Dialogue” is conditioned by a clear set of requirements. First, it is inadmissible to intervene in the sovereign affairs of the partner by offering unsolicited advice on internal matters. Second, all parties should agree, that there is no “universal” political panacea to all human rights problems. Still some representatives of Germany tried to turn constructive debate into loud but senseless political talk. For instance, the anti-Russian Bundestag resolution hastily initiated by Berlin's official representative for German-Russian relations and CDU deputy Andreas Schockenhoff just before the event is a fine example of such bureaucratic verbalism. Schockenhoff’s speech on “Petersburg Dialogue” in Moscow mostly consisted of ideas, expressed in the resolution. Some gestures of courtesy were added to the text by the diplomats to sweeten the pill, but, as they say, haste makes waste: both the document and the speech were imbalanced, not to say biased. Schockenhoff tried to “accelerate” negotiations, ignoring far more experienced colleagues, but didn’t manage the risk to lose political “driving license”. The Foreign Ministry of Germany did its best to improve the resolution at the supreme moment, but to no avail. Preliminary statement obviously contradicts the rest of the text.
 
Although as early as October 2012 the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Alexander Lukashevich brought to the attention of the Germans, that Schockenhoff continually promoted discriminatory policy against Russia. The motives of CDU deputy are clear now – he wants to boost personal political rating at the expense of state-to-state relations. But the reasons why Berlin decided to compromise long-term mutually beneficial business cooperation by appointing Schockenhoff remain obscure. In the controversial resolution the German politician is strangely concerned about the closed USAID program in Moscow and vigilantly tries to protect interests of American taxpayers. This fact made many in Russia assume that tensions in the dialogue of continental nations may be partially explained by presence of some subtle Atlantic “third party”.

One of the leading Russian experts in foreign relations Vitaly Tretyakov in his comment summarizing the results of “Petersburg Dialogue” asked an interesting and very substantial question: is there any kind of “New York Dialogue”, where the representatives of US and Germany discuss calamity issues? It is really hard to imagine a Russian speaker in Berlin bringing up such points as the failure of multiculturalism in Europe or the presence US nuclear warheads on the territory of sovereign Germany just the day before the most important bilateral conference of the year. It would be generally considered “bad manners”.

The decision of Baden-Würtemberg authorities to cancel “Petersburg Dialogue-2013” in their state should be characterized in the same way. All details, including financing, were negotiated last summer by high-level experts and qualified representatives of the forum. However in November 2012 the governor of Baden-Würtemberg Winfried Kretchmann (“German Green Party”) suddenly changed his mind and canceled “Petersburg Dialogue-2013” due to financial difficulties, Spiegel reported. Apparently journalists’ comments on the matter show, that “German Green Party” in the state government simply didn’t find any better excuse to avoid the conference. From the formal point of view and according to Article 24 of the German Constitution foreign policy belongs to the competence of the federal government. Did Kretchmann have federal sanction to compromise interstate cooperation with his demarche? And how can it influence the long-term relations between Russia and Germany?

“Petersburg Dialogue”, if the Germans are still interested in this forum, should be reoriented within the framework, which was proposed in 2008-2011 by the representatives of Eastern Committee of German Economy. Agenda for 2013 may include infrastructure projects, new points of growth in the developing Russian market and combined efforts to minimize the consequences of European debt crisis. The project of common economic and energy market for the Russian Federation and European Union, expressed as early as 2001, is also very challenging: it will definitely revitalize depressive European economy and thus stabilize the position of Germany as the main creditor of the region. But such level of mutual trust can be achieved only if German politics stop wasting potential for cooperation on political gambling…