German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/159, pp. 20331-20332.
Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable Herr Chancellor. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.
The omens under which you set out for this European Council are dark. The Ukraine war is already in a third year. Serious efforts to end the fateful bloodletting in the midst of Europe are not in sight. Warmongering and war rhetoric determine the tone in Brussels as well as in Berlin.
Friedrich Merz
(CDU/CSU): Not in Moscow?
Michel, the President of the European Council, demands: Europe needs to prepare itself for war and change over to a war economy.
Friedrich Merz
(CDU/CSU): In which world do you live, actually?
The French state President Macron speaks of the mission of NATO troops in the Ukraine theater of war, and boasts that France would be in the position for that.
Friedrich Merz
(CDU/CSU): What you say, Putin could not say better!
In the ranks of the Union, in a remarkable historical amnesia, – Herr Merz, because you the entire time interrupt –
Till
Steffen (Greens): That’s in your manuscript, but he didn’t do that!
one dreams of carrying the war to Russia. The Union stands for that. In lock-step with the FDP armaments lobbyist Strack-Zimmermann forms a black-green coalition of warmongers which flatters itself with martial rhetoric – even you, Herr Chancellor; a shame that you are not here – and accuses others of defeatism.
Till
Steffen (Greens): I believe that was a failure of translation from the Russian.
The bellicose over-bidding competition rings the more absurd against the background of the desolate state of our own armed forces. The Bundeswehr has at its disposal, as before, not one, single mission-ready army brigade. Nevertheless, the debate revolves steadfastly around new weapons deliveries and financial aid in the billions to Kiev, while the reconstruction of our own army and the recovery of capability for our own national defense is here obviously of no priority. It was right, Herr Chancellor, that you spoke against the delivery of the Taurus cruise missile to the Ukraine.
Dorothee Bär (CDU/CSU): Yes, praise
from the AfD! That is super for the SPD! Madness!
It would not be in the German security interest to strip our armed forces of an additional important weapons system. In that regard, the Bundeswehr does not even have at its disposal a sufficient number of these cruise missiles so as to fulfill its obligations vis-à-vis NATO. The delivery of this system, which as an offensive weapon may have effect far into Russia and can even reach the Kremlin, would be a quite clear participation in the war. The commitment of German soldiers for servicing would necessarily follow after it and thereby dramatically increase the potential of escalation.
And even you, Herr Scholz, have ever again fallen down and have let yourself be forced into escalation. First should German armored howitzers bring the war’s turning point, then German defensive panzers and finally German combat panzers. None of that fulfilled the ratcheted-up expectations. Now the escalationists extol the Taurus as a game-changer or wonder weapon. Even with the Taurus, the Ukraine has not the faintest breath of a chance to achieve its war aims. The truth is needed for that.
Even if this time you remain steadfast, the Nein to Taurus does not suffice. Germany is acting de facto as a war party. Germany participates by means of the sanctions in an economic war against Russia. Germany delivers weapons to the Ukraine. Germany gives to considerable extent financial assistance,
Christoph
Meyer (FDP): Has the Kremlin written down all of that for you?
and Europe expropriates capital income on Russian reserve deposits – from my viewpoint, that is forbidden.
Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): Russia
Today speaks! Here is the latest news from Russia Today!
Instead of driving forward the escalation with warmongering and weapons deliveries, the German policy needs to call to mind its strengths. That means: It needs to venture all to step forward as a mediator and get negotiations underway. To that, we are besides also obligated by the peace precept in the German Basic Law.
Without question is Russia’s war in the Ukraine an attack contrary to international law.
Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): Ach ja?
Christian
Dürr (FDP): Ah!
Just so without question has the Ukraine the right to self defense.
Friedrich Merz
(CDU/CSU): Aha!
The decision in that regard to support it does not however release us from the obligation to rational policy in the well understood interests of our own country and our own people.
German interests are represented and defined in Berlin, not by chance in Kiev or in Washington. Even in the U.S.A. are there long since signs of an exit [Ausstieg]. To believe the Europeans could alone continue to conduct the U.S.A.’s proxy war against Russia would be folly and hubris in one.
Kordula
Schulz-Asche (Greens): Proxy war?
The Ukraine war has long since run aground. It devours month by month billions in money and material and countless soldiers’ lives. The talk of victory and endurance from Kiev is unrealistic. This war must not be frozen in, it must be ended.
Katja Mast
(SPD): Putin can pull out!
A Ukraine as a theater of war, de-populated and devastated for years, helplessly dependent on foreign payments and under the continual danger of the escalation to a Third World War, is neither in the German nor European interest. It can also ultimately not be in the interest of the Ukrainian nation.
Germany’s interest is peace in Europe, the normalization of economic relations with all countries, Russia also, and the ending of the sanctions war which most harms us alone. The way there leads through negotiations. You cannot execute this charge, in that you glorify one of the war’s opponents and demonize the other. Realistic foreign policy has the duty, in the propaganda thunder of the war parties which we here everyday hear,
Patrick Schnieder
(CDU/CSU): Just from you!
to find the contact points for a durable exchange of interests. Certainly, when the weapons speak, diplomacy is not allowed to be silent.
Vice-president
Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Your time is expired, Frau Weidel.
Act for the best of one’s own people and the peoples of Europe. Seek the way to peace
Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Frau Weidel.
so as to prevent a major European war.
[trans: tem]
