He is considered his closest foreign policy adviser and accompanied Scholz to Moscow and Kyiv. Now Jens Plötner caused irritation with statements about Russia. Criticism comes from the traffic light. Even the White House is upset.
Jens Plötner, foreign and security policy advisor to Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), caused criticism with a speech at the German Society for Foreign Policy on Monday. Although Plötner condemned the “Russian war of aggression against Ukraine”, he also said:
Outrage at the FDP and Union. Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, head of the Defense Committee in the Bundestag, told the Handelsblatt that Plötner reveals the “thinking that has brought us into this terrible situation in recent decades”. And: “It’s not the time to think lovingly about Russia.”
CDU foreign politician Norbert Röttgen told the newspaper: “The statements by the Chancellor’s foreign policy adviser reveal that the future German-Russian relationship is an essential aspect of the federal government’s policy of supporting Ukraine.” Delivery of heavy weapons is hesitant. It is about the “continuation of the error that Germany, in favor of a positive relationship with Russia, imposes restraint on Ukraine”.
Criticism also comes from the USA. According to Handelsblatt information, US President Joe Biden’s advisory group is upset. The foreign policy expert Noah Barkin from the New York think tank “Rhodium Group” shared some statements from Plötner on Twitter at the beginning of the week. He wrote: “Plötner gave an insight into the thinking in the Chancellery that evening. It’s an old SPD worldview that some dared hope would die out. She is alive.”
At the beginning of April, the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, criticized in the “Tagesspiegel”: “Steinmeier has been creating a spider’s web of contacts with Russia for decades. Many people are involved in this who are now in charge at the traffic lights – Mr. Plötner in the Chancellery, Mr. Michaelis in the Foreign Office and many important ambassadors.
Recently, a Ukrainian diplomat told the “Bild” about Plötner and the arms deliveries to Ukraine: “He blocked everything that was possible and only reacted when the pressure was maximum. With the ring exchange, which takes far too long, he is now letting us down again.”
Plötner has been a close advisor to the Chancellor since December 2021 and traveled to Kyiv with Scholz last week. For a long time he was also one of the closest companions of today’s Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. From 2014 to 2017 he headed his ministerial office, from 2019 to 2021 Plötner was political director at the Federal Foreign Office.
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