BERLIN: Germany, often accused of stepping too lightly on the world stage, has taken an unusually vocal and active stand over the Ukrainian crisis and is helping mediate an end to the turmoil.
In the EU’s relations with eastern Europe and Russia, Berlin has increasingly acted as a voice for the 28-nation bloc, drawing on geographic proximity and old communication channels, say analysts. Chancellor Angela Merkel, who grew up under communism in the former East Germany, became strongly engaged in the three-month-old standoff between the pro-Moscow leadership in Kiev and pro-Western demonstrators.
Last week she hosted Ukrainian opposition leaders, including former world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, who long lived in Germany and is a popular household name in the country. As Ukraine’s bloody turmoil reached a head, Germany’s foreign minister, along with his Polish and French counterparts, jetted into Kiev and helped hammer out a deal that brought the country back from the brink.
Long after France’s Laurent Fabius had left for China, Germany’s Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Poland’s Radoslaw Sikorski held all-night marathon talks with President Viktor Yanukovych.
On Friday they were able to witness the signing of the deal, in which the embattled leader promised a new unity government, constitutional reform and elections before the end of the year.
Despite widespread caution over whether the deal will hold, Germany’s Die Welt newspaper cheered the diplomatic coup, saying Steinmeier and Sikorski took a big gamble that had “risked a loss of face”. 
“Let no-one say that the EU is a paper tiger,” said the conservative daily.
Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert suggested it was the chancellor who paved the way for the crucial mediating role of the EU envoys. She had called Yanukovych and “was able to convince him to accept the foreign ministers in Kiev as dialogue partners, as witnesses and as moderators”, Seibert said.
Joerg Forbrig, an eastern Europe expert with the German Marshall Fund of the United States, warned about the new deal that “you have to be very cautious … a lot of things can still go horribly wrong”.
But he also said that, if successful, it may prove the point that “the eastern neighbourhood is the one area where the EU can succeed with a foreign policy of its own, where the EU can make a difference”.
For Berlin, the Ukraine initiative follows other recent moves to support pro-democracy actors and dissidents from Russia and former Soviet satellite states.
“Germany has clearly become more active” in the region, said Jan Koehler, an expert on eastern Europe at Berlin’s Free University, adding that this was motivated by strategic interests as much as democratic values.
In December former German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher — who was in office when the Berlin Wall fell — brokered the release of jailed oil tycoon and Putin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
After flying in on a private jet organised by Genscher, Khodorkovsky addressed the public from Berlin’s Checkpoint Charlie, a former border crossing in the wall that once divided the city.
The same historic site was chosen again this month for an address by Dmytro Bulatov, the Ukrainian opposition activist who was abducted and tortured by assailants he said were pro-regime thugs.
Steinmeier had strongly pushed his Ukrainian counterpart to let Bulatov leave the country, also promising the activist medical care.
In recent years Germany has also campaigned on behalf of Ukraine’s jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, offering her medical treatment in Germany.
Christian Wipperfuerth, Russia expert of the German Council on Foreign Relations, said Germany’s engagement with eastern Europe is not new.
Berlin had also played a key role during other standoffs, such as Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2008 Russia-Georgia conflict.
Germany’s relations with the east “are not just about one or two dozen diplomats who focus on Russia”, he said, pointing also to the leading role of German companies in eastern Europe.
“In Germany there is simply far more Russia expertise than in other large West European countries,” he said.