Wandel durch Handel
[1] In April 2022, European Commissioner for Economy Paolo Gentiloni stated that "[t]he notion of 'Wandel durch Handel', of bringing about change through trade, has shown its limitations", saying that "[w]e need to rethink our relations with autocratic regimes and strengthen our ties with like-minded partners".
[9] The idea was prevalent among some Enlightenment philosophers, like Thomas Paine, who argued that "[i]f commerce were permitted to act to the universal extent it is capable, it would extirpate the system of war".
[10][11][12] The policy of Wandel durch Annäherung (English: "change through rapprochement") was first formulated in 1963 in a speech by Egon Bahr before the Evangelischen Akademie Tutzing.
[5] Angela Merkel, Gerhard Schröder's successor as chancellor, and her governments have been closely associated with the WdH policy;[16][17] in fact she resurrected the career of Foreign Minister Steinmeier from 2013 to 2017, whereupon he left for the presidency.
[26] Rolf Mützenich, SPD parliamentary leader, stated that "Europe urgently needs to define a common economic foreign policy ... with the war in Ukraine and the aftermath, it will probably no longer be about change through trade [Wandel durch Handel].
[2] Similarly, those of President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, as well as other German business leaders and administration officials, have come under strong criticism.
[31][32] Joe Kaeser, of Siemens, described as the one pushing hardest for deepening ties by Politico, also apologized for previous remarks, stating "I was among those who believed in the principle of Wandel durch Handel".
[2] In May 2022 Steinmeier described his past policy towards Russia as "failure on many points", caused in part by long-term culture of ignoring warnings from Eastern European countries, especially after 2014.
[33] In a criticism of the WdH policy, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss stated that instead of bringing about democratization in Russia, Putin "took the money from oil and gas and used it to consolidate power and gain leverage abroad",[3] stating also that "Wandel durch Handel – the assumption that economic integration drives political change – didn't work".
[34] According to Vasyl Cherepanyn of the Visual Culture Research Center in Kyiv, WdH "has simply been a maskirovka, a deception that has allowed German corporations to maintain ties with their Russian oligarch counterparts all this time".
She gave no explanation as to her misunderstanding of the directionality of time nor how she saw this being compatible with deepening dependence on Russian gas, only saying she considered it proper to have "at least some trade relations".
