In Europe, the lure of a return to cheap energy is ever-present, and that conversation is becoming easier as the Trump administration in Washington pushes hard for ceasefire negotiations with Moscow. Senior German politicians are already calling for a resumption of ties with Russia. For example Michael Kretschmer, a senior member of Friedrich Merz’s centre-right Christian Democrats, is now arguing that EU sanctions on Russia are “completely out of date” as they increasingly openly contradict “what the Americans are doing.” Financial Times in a fresh report quoted Kretschmer’s words to the German press agency DPA as follows: “When you realize that you’re weakening yourself more than your opponent, then you have to think about whether all of this is right.” The same publication has observed the expected immediate backlash to the statements as follows: Kretschmer, who is also a long-standing opponent of weapons deliveries to Ukraine, is the latest in a string of figures from both Merz’s centre-right CDU and the centre-left Social Democrats to have gone public in recent weeks with calls to resume economic or energy ties with Russia. That has created a problem for Merz — who is all but certain to be Germany’s next chancellor — as well as for his likely coalition partners in the […]