President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Mr Vice Chancellor,
It is a pleasure to welcome you and all of our German guests. I hope we will have the chance to discuss all the current issues concerning our bilateral relations.
Last time we met was when I was on my way to London. That was an important moment in our contacts. We discussed the crisis and other important matters. It has to be said that the situation has shown little real change since then, though we are making a lot of effort to get our economies performing better, working more actively, and getting the international financial system back into shape.
In this respect, I think that the bilateral projects that have already become a tradition in our countries’ ties are very important. Indeed, the number of such projects continues to grow, despite the fact that we have seen not only positive moments but also negative changes.
Trade turnover between our countries has dropped sharply of late. This is a direct result of the crisis of course, and is not due to any political manipulation. We want to trade with each other. We want to develop our bilateral relations. We have a close partnership in this area, but we need to make an effort to keep our economies working in as synchronous a fashion as they were before the crisis began. I think this is a very important aspect of our cooperation.
We have other concerns too, matters on which we customarily hold consultations, namely, European security. I know that Germany has always taken a very open and constructive position in this area. We have discussed on a number of occasions, including at our personal meetings, the question of concluding a new treaty on guaranteeing European security.
At the recent Russia-European Union summit, we began discussing another important subject – the basic principles for guaranteeing energy security. I hope that our European partners, especially as close a partner as Germany, will be interested in discussing the initiatives we have put forward and our approaches, because this is important for Europe’s future and also for resolving the economic problems that are causing us all such difficulties today.
We have more than enough problems, not to mention the regional and global problems that Germany’s Foreign Ministry is also traditionally involved in. I think we will have the chance to discuss all of these matters.
I would be interested to hear your views on what is happening in Germany today. This is a subject of interest to us, all the more so with a busy political season coming up ahead.
I am pleased to welcome you to these talks.
German Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (as translated into Russian): Thank you very much for the warm welcome, Mr President.
I am very pleased to be able to continue the discussions that we had last year. The subjects of discussion have changed substantially compared to last year. Last year, we focused on foreign policy, security, while now it is the international financial crisis and how we are coping with it in Germany and in Russia that is the centre of attention.
These are not easy times for us in Germany. As you know, we have a substantially export-oriented economy, and we are therefore feeling the full impact of the crisis. It really is affecting all of our main export markets. We see a recession on all of these markets, and this has far-reaching consequences for our country’s economy.
We have adopted a whole series of measures to lessen the crisis’ effects in Germany. They include classic anti-crisis measures aimed at stimulating domestic demand to compensate for the drop in export opportunities.
We are also taking action on the labour market so as not to let unemployment rise too high. There is no way to protect all jobs, but we do have a useful instrument – a shorter working week. Using this instrument, companies facing falling orders, instead of laying off around one million people, have been able to keep them in their jobs.
We depend on each other when it comes to putting in place a new international financial system. I am grateful for the part Russia played at the world financial summit in London, and for the agreements that we reached there. We now need to move on to the next step of reaching agreement on establishing an international financial supervision system. I am sure that Russia will put all its energy and effort, as will we, into this work.