Even in power they were an odd couple: a Social Democrat who steered through painful economic reforms and a Green who sent German troops into their first foreign war since 1945. Out of power, the tribal loyalties of Gerhard Schröder, Germany’s previous chancellor, and Joschka Fischer, his foreign minister, have now re-emerged. The two are at opposite ends of a furious debate over energy security and relations with Russia.

The haste with which Mr Schröder hopped from the chancellery to chair the shareholders’ committee of the Nord Stream pipeline, planned to run on the Baltic seabed, reflects both his own views (he once called Vladimir Putin a “flawless democrat”) and his party’s longstanding policies. Ever since Chancellor Willy Brandt came up with the notion, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) has been wedded to Ostpolitik. So much so that it survived unification and is now the party’s policy towards Russia.

The argument is that Russia needs European markets as much as the European Union needs Russian gas. “Germany’s strategic interest is to bind Russia into an energy alliance with the EU,” says Alexander Rahr, an analyst at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). “They are more dependent on us than we are on them.” The pitfall is that the SPD tends to be soft in its criticism of Russia over human rights and other issues-look at the behaviour of the present SPD foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. There is also a fear that, by binding in Russia, Germany may be binding itself. Imports of Russian gas are expected to rise to almost half the total, from 40 per cent now.

... contd.