Acta Universitatis Danubius. Relationes Internationales, Vol 12, No 1 (2019)

Abstract

Eastern Europe has represented and still represents a vast space for the coexistence of European civilizations, but also an area with extremely interesting and attractive economic potential for economically developed states or entities. From these perspectives, not infrequently, the geopolitical crises or the geostrategic interests of the great forces in this space have led to the appearance or even the deliberate triggering of actions designed to create social, political and economic destabilization.

            Our approach, in this article, intends to underline and define essential aspects of the Ukrainian crisis which, at this moment, seems to have identified its solution by implementing a negotiation format, namely the Steinmeier format. Even though this path bears this name, as it was proposed by the President of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the solution finds its origins in the Normandy negotiation format, which was the basis for the conclusion of the Minsk Peace Agreement of 2015.

Actually, what we will define further in this paper is that the interests of Germany and France, at this time, are congruent with the interests of Russia and not with NATO's strategic partner, the United States of America. This congruence derives from purely economic reasons to which Germany clearly acquiesces, the main point of interest being the Nord Stream II gas pipeline and France wishing only to strengthen its role of geostrategic power in relation to Germany.