MIt is now more than a year since Russia attacked Ukraine – an event that Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) shortly afterwards called a “turning point” in a government statement. The Federal Ministry of Defense is now under new management, but the troops have hardly received any of the 100 billion euro special fund.
Scholz was nevertheless optimistic on Friday in Frankfurt that the Bundeswehr’s equipment would soon be noticeably better: “We will have a defense economy that can serve our security interests in the long term,” said Scholz at the FAZ readers’ congress “Between the Lines” on the Frankfurter Goethe University. Ongoing production of weapons and ammunition is good – and there will be “relevant” production of ammunition for the Cheetah tank as early as late summer.
“We feel what kind of wrong decisions have been made in the past,” said Scholz when asked by FAZ editor Berthold Kohler why the special fund has so far hardly reached the troops. According to the Chancellor, it is necessary to conclude long-term contracts with armaments companies and to plan ahead. Scholz does not see that he has held on to the recently resigned Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) for too long.
“Where would we end up?”
It cannot be that Russia now wants to move its borders with reference to earlier conditions. “Where would we be if that were to determine the security order in Europe?” said Scholz. It was the great achievement of the détente policy of the 1970s that no borders were pushed by force. That is the consensus in Germany. “And you can expect the same from others, otherwise the peace is endangered.” Ukraine must not lose, there must be no “Russian dictated peace,” said Scholz, earning applause from the audience at the FAZ Congress.
As far as the migration crisis is concerned, Scholz campaigned for so-called migration partnerships and increased immigration of skilled workers who were urgently needed. “We need the digitization of the immigration authorities,” demanded the Chancellor. “I ask myself: Where do we actually live, almost ten years after 2014/2015 I heard that maybe a tenth of the immigration authorities are digitized. That can’t be true.” Scholz asked why couldn’t electronic files simply be sent from immigration authority to immigration authority. “I think this work has to be done.”
Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz is greeted by FAZ publisher Berthold Kohler on his arrival at the FAZ Congress.
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Image: Lucas Bäuml
At the FAZ Congress, Scholz rejected the Greens’ demand that climate protection issues should be discussed again after the long meeting of the coalition committee. “We have found a very final clarification on questions that have not been clarified for many years,” said Scholz on the main political panel. After the 30-hour negotiations, which mainly focused on climate protection and infrastructure issues, the Greens in the traffic light coalition in particular were dissatisfied. “It is not surprising that there is a lot to discuss,” said Scholz. “A lot has grown over the decades.” Many regulations have been added that slow down planning projects. “The solutions for this are not obvious.”