DThe Bundestag voted on Thursday against a motion from the Union parliamentary group that called on the federal government to deliver Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine. The federal government has so far resisted supplying longer-range weapons. 480 MPs voted against the Union motion, 182 for it. Five politicians abstained.
As announced, the FDP defense politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann voted for the Union proposal, as announced. She did this solely because “the Taurus system was clearly mentioned,” said the chairwoman of the Defense Committee in the Bundestag on Thursday. “I don’t want to one day be accused of not doing the right thing at the right time,” she said.
The CDU chairman Friedrich Merz had previously called on the traffic light factions to vote for the Union proposal. The “turning point” proclaimed by the Chancellor has so far largely “remained just a word,” said Merz. So far it has not led to any comprehensive action. If you take the mission of “Zeitwende” seriously, “then we still have most of the homework ahead of us.”
To the doubters of arms deliveries, Merz said that Germany should have learned from history that appeasement of a regime that doesn’t follow any rules is of no use. “It causes the opposite of what we want: a life of security and freedom.”
In the Union’s motion “For a real turning point in German foreign and security policy,” the MPs are calling for the “immediate delivery” of weapon systems requested and available in Germany for the Ukrainian fight against Russia, including the Taurus cruise missile. Germany should take over European leadership and coordination. Despite the threat from Russia, Germany is far from a “strategic paradigm shift,” the application states. The “turning point” proclaimed by Scholz did not progress beyond the stage of announcement.
Politicians from the traffic light factions criticized the Union proposal. The application is “very thin,” said SPD politician Ralf Stegner. The Union has “appropriate financing” neither for German or European security nor for support for Ukraine. Deborah Düring from the Greens misses the Union’s “self-criticism” in her application: “Not a word about the failed Russia policy.” In the application one can discover “good approaches in one place or another”. But one half is “already happening” and the other half lacks “substance”.
FDP politicians and the Greens want to deliver Taurus
The German government has so far refused to deliver weapons with a range of 500 kilometers to Ukraine because, among other things, it fears that Kiev could use them to attack targets on Russian territory. On the other hand, the ranks of the small coalition partners, the Greens and the FDP, have long been pushing for the Taurus to be delivered to Ukraine.
A motion from the traffic light factions, which calls for the delivery of “long-range weapon systems” but does not explicitly name Taurus, was also voted on Thursday. It was passed with the votes of the SPD, Greens and FDP in the Bundestag. 382 MPs voted in favor, 284 against, and there were two abstentions.
Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) had previously criticized the Union for its Taurus application. He would like more “humility and constructiveness”. Pistorius said that Germany was admired by the world for its help, “and here the opposition is talking us down to earth.”
Putin’s Russia remains the biggest threat to Europe in the foreseeable future, he emphasized. In response to a question from CDU politician Jürgen Hardt as to whether “long-range weapon systems” meant the Taurus, the minister replied: “I can’t answer that – the applicants will have thought about their part.”
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