Will the Kaliningrad region turn into Eastern Prussia?

The renaming of Kaliningrad into Koeningsberg is a move toward turning the Kaliningrad region into Eastern Prussia; the next step will be to give the area to Germany, Institute of Europe Deputy Director Sergey Karaganov said in an interview to Echo Moskvy radio.

In his words, “neither Germany, nor Poland want the situation to develop like this, because the enclave would then become a geophysical irritant in the center of Europe, where everything is perfectly quiet now.” Moreover, Russia does not need it as well.

Koeningsberg - Kaliningrad will celebrate its 750th anniversary in 2005; the city has had its second name, Kalininrad, for the last 52 years. A program for the celebration is being developed in Kaliningrad now. Sergey Karaganov also touched upon the introduction of a visa regime for Kaliningrad region residents and said that “an unreasoned position of the European Union concerning this problem poses more problems for Brussels itself. If the EU insists on its position, this will demonstrate that Europe’s foreign policy is not just a policy, but heaven knows what. This policy deprives Brussels and all European countries of their flexibility in the solution of important problems. In addition, another West Berlin, but in an even worse form, will appear. Therefore, I think that the EU will concede sooner or later, and a compromise will be reached on the problem.” In Karaganov’s words, the majority of European politicians admit this fact as well.

Nastya Primakova PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Maria Gousseva

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/north-west/2002/07/25/44652.html

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