German aid for Ukraine: hesitating at the turning point?

The Federal Chancellor has proclaimed a turning point. It’s been a good seven weeks now. Since then, criticism of Scholz has been growing – too little leadership, too hesitant. Are the allegations justified?

Chancellor Olaf Scholz raised great expectations in the special session of the Bundestag on the Ukraine war at the end of February. His speech would then simply be called the “Zeitenwende speech”. This Sunday, February 27, Scholz promised nothing less than a new security policy.

Five orders

From this, the analyst Scholz derived five orders for action. First: arms deliveries. Second: sanctions to “dissuade Putin from his war course”. Thirdly, NATO’s obligation to provide assistance, which is undisputed anyway, ie the alliance’s principle of “one for all, all for one”. Fourth: More money for more security. These include the 100 billion euro special fund for the Bundeswehr, spending a good two percent of gross domestic product on defense and a new energy policy. And finally: “As much diplomacy as possible without being naive.”

Promised and delivered, SPD co-leader Saskia Esken now thinks – a good seven weeks after the chancellor’s speech. The government and the traffic light coalition are firmly on Ukraine’s side, she says. Right from the start, the reaction was to supply arms and to impose tough sanctions.

The interim balance of the CDU foreign politician Roderich Kiesewetter is quite different. Empty speech instead of a speech about a turning point, according to the opposition: “So far it seems like rhetoric.” Kiesewetter demands that the announcements from back then should now also be backed up.

Taciturn federal government

US arms shipments can be found online in the White House data sheet. Among them are 16 helicopters and 200 armored personnel carriers. The federal government, on the other hand, is silent on details. That makes her vulnerable in the public debate, precisely because she doesn’t want to make herself vulnerable to the Kremlin.

Heavy weapons for Ukraine?

And there is the ongoing heavy weapons debate. However, they do not appear in the speech about the turn of the century. At that time, the delivery of weapons was already considered new. Today that is not enough for Ukraine. Ex-Finance Minister Scholz’s solution: around one billion more for Ukrainian purchases. The opposition politician Kiesewetter finds it weak. The money sounds “like ransom”. Germany must become a security provider: “And that can also be done by supplying heavy weapons.”

Germany has not yet met the NATO target of spending two percent of gross domestic product on defense. The turn of the century speech brought the chancellor’s promise to stick to it year after year from now on. However, this calculation does not work through the federal budget, but only if you take into account the 100 billion euro special fund. However, that wobbles. It needs a change in the Basic Law – and with it the Union. The warns that you will not help out as a substitute bench. In addition, there is a lack of involvement, according to CDU leader Friedrich Merz. A blank check will not be issued. If things continue like this, it will be “very, very difficult,” said Merz. Especially since not even the traffic light coalition partners agree.

The traffic light argues

They are currently arguing mainly about heavy weapons. FDP defense politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann and Green Europe expert Anton Hofreiter are in favor – together with Michael Roth from the SPD. All three were recently in western Ukraine. When asked whether there was a procrastinator in the Chancellery, Strack-Zimmermann then simply answered “Yes” on Deutschlandfunk.

The Union knows how to use the tensions in the traffic light government. She is thinking about her own application in the Bundestag for the delivery of heavy weapons, knowing full well that this will deepen the cracks.

On the other hand, there is more unity – at least among leading coalition representatives – on the issues of sanctions and energy. Stop gas and oil from Russia: Yes, but not immediately. That’s how the Green Economics Minister Robert Habeck sees it. His interim assessment at the end of March in the Bundestag is therefore: “This is how the turning point works.” You are freeing yourself from the grip that has been tightened around Germany in recent years “either through ignorance or through strategic blindness.” How does the turning point work? Green politician Hofreiter thinks it’s going too slowly. An oil exit is also possible in weeks. The traffic lights continue to rumble.

Scholz is not a Basta Chancellor

Scholz has promised a lot. The brutality, for example in Bucha, has faded some of it, and amendments to the Basic Law do not follow the pace of a war. Scholz is also not the Basta chancellor that his speech might have suggested – nor his much-quoted and many-year-old statement that anyone who orders leadership will get it from him. He must have a large SPD faction as united as possible at his side. An SPD that yesterday was still thinking in terms of “change through trade”. And Scholz has to lead a polyphonic coalition of three to compromise. You can call that an intermediary. Or just procrastinators.