After weeks of tough talks, the three parties in German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's coalition appeared to have reached an agreement on the 2025 budget plan. But an investigation by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitungpublished on Saturday August 17, served as a reminder of the extent of the divisions that run through the ruling majority in Berlin on one subject: Ukraine.
According to the major centre-right daily, the government, in the midst of tightening its budget, does not intend to help Kiev beyond the 8 billion euros included in the 2024 budget, the 4 billion euros planned for that of 2025 and the 3 billion euros expected in 2026, where the supporters of increased military support – including within Mr Scholz's coalition – were counting on additional envelopes to allow Ukraine to win the war.
Among them is the Minister of Defence, Boris Pistorius, a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). In the spring, the latter had requested an additional 3.8 billion euros, in addition to the 8 billion euros already set aside for 2024, in order to finance the sending of an IRIS-T anti-aircraft defence system as well as artillery munitions and drones to the Kiev forces. However, in a letter dated 5 August, also addressed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Annalena Baerbock (Greens), the Liberal Democratic Minister of Finance, Christian Lindner (FDP), sent him a flat refusal.
Chairman of the liberal party, the FDP, which has made balancing public accounts the core of its policy, Mr Lindner now wants the new credits allocated to kyiv not to come from national budgets but from the future instrument created by the G7 and the European Union, intended to use the interest generated by the 300 billion dollars of Russian assets frozen in the world in order to support Ukraine in its war effort against Moscow. The problem is that these funds will not be available before 2025, at the earliest.
SPD Identity Crisis
Unsurprisingly, the revelations of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung have caused a strong reaction from the kyiv authorities. “The security of Europe depends on Germany's ability and political will to continue to play a leading role in helping our country.”Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Oleksii Makeiev told the daily on Sunday. Image.
Nor was it surprising that the conservative opposition CDU/CSU has fired broadsides at Mr Scholz's coalition, as it has done every time he, through his procrastination and hesitation in supplying new weapons, has appeared to call into question his support for Ukraine. “The government is playing politics in the style of Donald Trump, blocking further aid to Ukraine because of internal political conflicts. The difference is that by helping Ukraine, Germany is contributing to its own security.”reacted MP Norbert Röttgen, former chairman of the Bundestag Foreign Affairs Committee (2014-2021).
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Source: Lemonde
