The leader announced before the Federal Parliament a multimillion-dollar investment to fine-tune his army
The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, abandoned, when it seemed that he was too late to do so, the line of timidity in defense matters and also of accomplice tolerance towards Moscow. Before a Bundestag (Federal Parliament) with full seats as was hardly seen in times of pandemic, the leader announced a multimillion-dollar investment to fine-tune his army -100,000 million-, as well as the progressive increase in defense spending until 2 % of GDP. A claim that Washington has been making to Germany since the days of Barack Obama in the White House and of course accentuated with Donald Trump, now finally addressed.
He also announced support for German families in the face of the foreseeable increase in the gas bill that will result from the closure of the Russian energy route and a reinforcement – not quantified – for the commitment to the development of renewables. He thanked the work of his green partners, especially the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Annalena Baerbock, and the Minister of Economy, Robert Habeck, pillars these days of the most critical line towards Moscow, while Scholz still remained ambiguous. He also thanked the Minister of Finance, the liberal Christian Lindner, for his willingness to open the public coffers, something that in Germany was not taken for granted in those who represent the defense of budget containment.
This Sunday’s session in the Bundestag, extraordinary and convened after the invasion of Ukraine, opened with a round of applause from the plenary as the ambassador of this country, Andrij Melnyk, stood up. The Ukrainian diplomat has been omnipresent these days in the German media, where he has spared no reproaches for, until this Sunday, Berlin’s weakness in helping his country. There were no exceptions in the applause, neither from The Left, which had already condemned the invasion unmitigatedly, nor from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which, like other European parties of its spectrum, sought for years the closeness and support of Vladimir Putin.
The parliamentary session followed Saturday’s announcement of Germany’s first arms supplies to Ukraine – 500 thousand and 1,000 grenade launchers – as well as Berlin’s readiness for a “selective” blockade of the swift banking system to Russia. Berlin’s rejection of both issues had strained relations with its European and transatlantic partners.
The two announcements once again came from the green Habeck and Baerbock, which was then followed by confirmation by Scholz’s spokesman. The chancellor had met that afternoon with the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, and the Lithuanian president, Gitanas Nauseda, who appeared in Berlin on their own initiative. At the door of the chancellery, Morawiecki unmitigatedly criticized Germany’s “ridiculous” position in the face of the Russian invasion.
From the presidency of Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder had been urged to “break” once and for all with Putin. From the alliance of interests or friendship between Schröder and the leader of the Kremlin emerged in 2005 the German-Russian agreement for the construction of the Nord Stream gas pipeline. Schröder became chairman of his board of directors after leaving power that same year and is scheduled to join the Russian giant Gazprom’s supervisory board in June.
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