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German election's outcome doesn't look very encouraging for Moscow — Russian senator

Given that according to a German tradition, a minor coalition partner usually gets to appoint the foreign minister, chances are that Russia will have to deal with a top diplomat representing the Greens or the Free Democrats, Konstantin Kosachev said

MOSCOW, September 27. /TASS/. Germany's parliamentary elections have failed to offer any encouragement for improvements in foreign policy toward Russia, however, much will depend on coalition talks, Deputy Speaker of Russia's Federation Council (the upper house of parliament) Konstantin Kosachev wrote on Facebook on Monday.

"What does it all mean to Russia? Given that according to a German tradition, a minor coalition partner usually gets to appoint the foreign minister, chances are that we will have to deal with a top diplomat representing the Greens or the Free Democrats. Clearly, it's not the most encouraging foreign policy outlook, though much will depend on the chancellor, too," Kosachev pointed out. He noted that today's Greens weren't the rebels of the 1990s, who called for the dissolution of NATO, but "an ultra-systemic party pursuing new ethics and hawkish radical liberalism." The Russian senator emphasized that they almost always took a strong stance against the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project and Crimea's reunification with Russia, promoting German weapons supplies to Ukraine and tougher sanctions on Moscow, "to say nothing of all the human rights issues." "Liberals from the Free Democratic Party are also charged ideologically but they at least had Hans-Dietrich Genscher who served as a pragmatic foreign minister during the periods of rapprochement between our country and the Federal Republic of Germany. Well, let's wait for the results of coalition talks, which may last until the end of the year," Kosachev concluded.

According to Germany's election authority, the Social Democratic Party received 206 out of the 735 seats in the Bundestag, while the bloc of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) got 196. The Greens gained 118 seats, another 92 went to the Free Democratic Party, 83 to Alternative for Germany and 39 to The Left. Preliminary talks on the formation of a government will kick off in the coming days though no decision has been made yet as to which parties will participate in the negotiation process.