The German government has been rushing to clean up the mess created by Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who declared on January 24 at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France, that "We are at war against Russia, not against each other." It was later claimed that her words were taken out of context, and that she was talking about the need for the European Union to be united in its policy of sending weapons to Ukraine.
However, Baerbock is far from the only European leader to make such a statement about the conflict in Ukraine, which is nearly its anniversary later this month. For example, last June, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said that Kiev’s fight against Moscow is “practically our war too.”
“Ukraine must win, that is really important. In any case, we must ensure that we do everything we can to bring them closer to that victory,” Rutte told Dutch media at the time.
Former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl told Sputnik on Friday that these kinds of statements are very dangerous, because the legal divide between formal declarations of war and peace has never been respected in Europe.
"The first reaction by, I would say, many readers who were in chatrooms of newspapers, social media, was very much irritated by this quote by Mrs. Annalena Baerbock, and said, ‘Well, you're not speaking for me. I don't want to be part of a war. Who declared war?’ And what was maybe the most irritating element was that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not really act immediately. And when it acted, it put the finger on Russia and said, this is again Russian propaganda by misinterpreting. So very confusing the whole situation.”
Kneissl explained that through the 19th and 20th centuries, formal declarations of war were often absent from major conflicts. “It was one ultimatum chasing the next ultimatum,” she noted. “So I would say Mrs. Annalena Baerbock was fairly outspoken.”
“Of course, you cannot call that a proper form of war declaration because she is not in a position legally, constitutionally to do that. But those who defend her say, ‘well, she only called a spade a spade because it's there anyway,’ and others said, ‘how could that happen? You know, how can a minister of foreign affairs [say this], we should be very careful about wording,’” Kneissl said.
“There is a lot of confusion on the Western side because of the fact that Ukraine army members are trained on German territory, on British territory, and it didn't start yesterday, it started some years ago,” Kneissl noted. “The fact that there's heavy arms being supplied, all that, you cannot anymore say that you are neutral or that this is not your war. I mean, this is de facto happening, whichever de-jure interpretation you want to give to it.”
In her Vedomosti column recently, Kneissl noted that European leaders are not taking the conflict seriously, giving it the appearance of an emotionally-driven game of war rather than a policy made by level-headed adults.
“Let the adults enter the room, please,” she told Sputnik.
“I mean, I wouldn't say that it's just one big group of teenagers, but those who have to say and those who have in our time, unfortunately, the support of the published opinion are very much into emotion, whether it's Mrs. Ursula von der Leyen, who is, I think, in her early sixties now. I mean, she's a far cry from being a teenager; Mrs. Annalena Baerbock is in mid-forties. So but they behave all of them, in an emotional and not in a rational way. And this is the big issue,” she explained.