Germany took its biggest turnaround since the fall of the Berlin Wall. While almost half a million Germans demonstrated in the streets of Berlin against the Russian attack on Ukraine, their government laid the foundations for a Copernican change. The timid Germany that emerged from the Cold War, the one that spent on defense well below its economic weight, the one that had most of its fighter-bombers on the ground due to lack of supplies and training of its pilots, died yesterday. The same one that with Chancellors Gerhard Schröeder and Angela Merkel tried to appease Russia, negotiate with Russia, do business with Russia, no longer exists. Yesterday another Germany was born.
The first European power, after assuming its economic responsibility at the beginning of the pandemic, now assumes its centrality in the continent and its role in history. If the political class keeps its word, Germany will be in a few years the first European military power after the French and British nuclear forces. This reinforcement will go to protect itself and also to help protect, within the framework of NATO, the European eastern flank.
The head of government, the Social Democrat Olaf Scholz, explained in the Bundestag (Parliament) that Putin’s attack on Ukraine is “a turning point in history, nothing will be like before.” Scholz said several times that this is “Putin’s war, not the Russians’ war.”
The announcements followed. Scholz said that his country will immediately create a fund of 100,000 million euros (it is higher than the Russian military budget) to be spent in three years, which will be added to the regular defense budgets. He also said that these will increase to reach 2 percent of German GDP, as NATO demands. And that it will stay permanently at that level. The justification is that, according to Scholz, “Putin’s war caused a failure in our foreign policy.”
The speeches that followed Scholz’s show that the Germany of yesterday will not be the Germany of today and that the geostrategic certainties of the leading European power, its foreign policy reports, are all outdated. A few hours before this momentous announcement, Scholz had announced that the ban on exporting lethal weapons was being lifted by announcing the shipment of thousands of anti-tank projectiles and other supplies to Ukraine.
Everyone together
The opposition is with Scholz. The new leader of the CDU, Friedrich Merz, the man who replaced Merkel at the head of the conservatives, assured that he will support the government. Merz said that “in a brutal way, an authoritarian system launched a war of aggression in the heart of Europe. The war in Ukraine is happening less than two hours by plane from where we are.”
The conservative also said that prayers for peace are nice, but that morality “alone will not be enough to make a more peaceful world. Good words have not helped Ukraine, nor have they postponed its entry into NATO. Merz said that he supports Scholz so that Germany “prepares itself to remedy its weaknesses, the historical task of this government.”
Annalena Baerbock, chancellor and leader of the Greens, said that Germany’s doors are open for those fleeing the war (since yesterday its railways are loading refugees at the Ukrainian-Polish border and taking them to Germany). The environmentalist, in charge of diplomacy, said that “as the world has changed, our foreign policy must change.”
The third leg of the government, that of the liberal Christian Lindner, said that for Germany it is “the end of illusions about Putin’s Russia. We are on the side of the Ukrainians.” Lindner, Finance Minister and until a few days ago the man who kept the key to the money, opened the box: “The aggression against Ukraine is an attack against all of us. We are going to isolate Russia. Economically, financially and politically. We are going to maintain the effort in the long term and we are willing to pay the price because it is the price of peace and freedom”.
Until now, Germany had been characterized by a policy of containment towards Russia, which allowed it a network of very close energy and financial relations with Moscow, which sometimes made it seem weak or hostage to Putin’s authoritarian gestures. Hence, one of Scholz’s ads addressed his government’s efforts to break energy dependence on Russia. In this sense, he assured that a responsible and forward-looking policy is decisive not only for the economy and the climate, but also for security. To do this, in addition to speeding up the development of renewable energies, it will be essential to increase coal and gas reserves – in the latter case by 2,000 million cubic meters -, he said, while announcing the construction of two liquefied natural gas terminals .
IDAFE MARTIN PEREZ
For the time
Brussels
The European Union will deliver fighter jets to Kiev
The European Union (EU) agreed yesterday, for the first time in its history, to organize and finance, with 500 million euros, the supply of weapons in a war in a third country, in this case the one waged by Ukraine against the Russian invader. “We have decided to use our capabilities to provide weapons, lethal weapons, lethal assistance to the Ukrainian Army, worth 450 million support packages, and 50 million more for non-lethal supplies, such as fuel and protective equipment,” the high representative announced. for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell.
“We are even going to send combat planes. We’re not just talking about ammunition. We are providing the most important weaponry for a war,” said the Spaniard.