The West shows internal divergence over Ukraine crisis
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E-mail Xinhua, February 8, 2015
Different interests
"The policy priorities in Germany and France are different from those in the United States," said Gu Xuewu, Director of Center for Global Studies in Bonn University in Germany, in an interview with Xinhua.
While Europe fears to push Russia too much in the corner would trigger strong reactions from Russia which would be dangerous to it neighbors, Gu said, "Obviously, the Americans would not like to see a ceasefire in Ukraine before Russia paid a bigger price".
"A collapsed Russia does not meet the interests of Europe," he said.
Russia ranked as the third largest trading partner for Germany outside Europe, following behind China and the United States with a trade volume of 77 billion euros (about 87 billion U.S. dollars) in 2013, data from German statistical office Destatis showed.
More than 6,000 German enterprises are operating in Russia and 10 percent of German exporters are doing business with the giant country.
Tensions between the West and Russia dampened German exports and hit companies' investment confidence in 2014, dragging down Europe's biggest economy to a negative growth during the summer months.
According to analysis of John J. Mearsheimer, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, Russia's core strategic interests were threatened by the West via North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) enlargement, EU expansion and value promotion in Russia's backyard, ignoring Russia's repeatedly warnings.
Gu said Germany and France are showing Putin their difference with the United States in interests and stance.
He expected that a compromise will be achieved within the year 2015 under the mediation of Merkel and Hollande.
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