Germans not amused by Nuland gaffe
Germans were already smarting from revelations that U.S. intelligence listened in on the phone conversations of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Then came Nulandgate.
On Thursday, a video was posted on YouTube in which Victoria Nuland, the top U.S. diplomat for Europe, disparagingly dismissed European Union efforts to mediate the ongoing crisis in the Ukraine by bluntly saying “F--- the E.U.” On Friday, Merkel, through press attaché Christiane Wirtz, described the gaffe as “absolutely unacceptable,” and defended the efforts of Catherine Ashton, the E.U.’s foreign policy chief.
“The chancellor finds these remarks absolutely unacceptable and wants to emphasize that Mrs. Ashton is doing an outstanding job,” Wirtz said.
Still freshly furious over the phone-tapping scandals, Germans took to Twitter and other social media in a litany of bitter comments. “Since we know now that the leadership circles in the USA don’t give a s--- about Europe, we should just stop the Free Trade Agreement,” came one Tweet from @kl1lercher, referring to ongoing negations to forge a transatlantic free trade deal. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the German foreign ministry told a media briefing Friday that "this just goes to show once more that wiretapping is stupid.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/germans-not-amused-by-nuland-gaffe/2014/02/07/66885a02-900d-11e3-878e-d76656564a01_story.html
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