At the last minute
Last-minute arms export record – five billion in the last few days under Merkel
This Meko 200 ship for Egypt has already been approved.
© Sina Schuldt / Picture Alliance
At the last minute, the Merkel government approved armaments shipments worth billions of euros. Particularly explosive: the majority went to a country that is involved in armed conflicts. Someone was involved who has the greatest responsibility today.
The former federal government of the Union and the SPD approved arms exports worth almost five billion euros in the last nine days of their term in office. This increases the total volume of export permits in the current year to a record value of 9.043 billion euros. This emerges from a response from the Ministry of Economic Affairs to a request from Left Bundestag member Sevim Dagdelen, which is available to the German Press Agency. Number one among the recipient countries is by far Egypt, which has been criticized for human rights violations and its involvement in the conflicts in Yemen and Libya.
The previous highest level of arms export licenses was reached two years ago: in 2019, weapons and military equipment worth 8.015 billion euros were shipped from Germany all over the world. This value will be exceeded by at least one billion euros this year.
Khaled Desouki / AFP
Germany is arming Egypt
A few days ago it became known that the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and her then Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) approved the sale of three warships and 16 air defense systems shortly before the handover on December 8th. Economics Minister Peter Altmaier (CDU) only informed the Bundestag about this one day before Scholz was elected Chancellor – without mentioning the value of the exports.
The answer from the Ministry of Economic Affairs now shows that until the change of government, war weapons and other armaments worth 4.34 billion euros had been approved for Egypt. According to an earlier response from the ministry to a parliamentary question from the left, it was only 0.18 billion euros by November 29. That means that for Egypt alone, the Merkel government has approved arms exports worth more than four billion euros in the last nine days. Overall, the Merkel / Scholz government allowed exports totaling 4.91 billion euros in the last few days – more than in the almost nine months before combined.
Government was only executive
What is explosive is that the government was only executive in office during this period. It is common practice that far-reaching political decisions are no longer made during this phase – especially if the successor government might disagree.
Today’s Chancellor Scholz is jointly responsible for the decision. The export of frigates and air defense systems from the armaments factories Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems and Diehl Defense was approved by the Federal Security Council, a cabinet committee to which Merkel and seven ministers belong. Among them is the finance minister, who was then called Olaf Scholz.
The left-wing foreign politician Dagdelen sharply criticized the behavior of the current Chancellor. “Olaf Scholz has done a real crook in the executive government and has impressively demonstrated how unscrupulous the SPD’s criticism of unscrupulous arms exports, especially of dictatorships and authoritarian regimes, ultimately remains,” she told the dpa. “This is a heavy burden for the new traffic light government under Scholz.”
The current federal government of the SPD, Greens and FDP has written a restrictive arms export policy on the flags. The coalition agreement stipulates that the previous guidelines for this are to be incorporated into a law. The main aim is to restrict exports to countries outside of the EU and NATO.
Green thwarted
In the coalition negotiations, the Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection, which is responsible for arms export control, went to the Greens, which traditionally have been particularly critical of arms exports. Minister Robert Habeck, who is also Vice Chancellor, had his parliamentary state secretary and party friend Sven Giegold respond to Dagdelen’s question. The distanced himself clearly from the export permits of the Merkel / Scholz government.
“It should be noted that the values in the tables below can be traced back to decisions made by the previous government,” he said in his letter. “The federal government provides for a restrictive approach to arms exports and will work out an arms export control law in accordance with the guard rails agreed in the coalition agreement.”
By way of comparison, Giegold points out that in the first seven days of its term in office the new government only issued arms export permits worth 3679 euros. These exports only went to EU countries, NATO countries or equivalent countries. Specifically: Australia, Austria, Sweden and Slovenia.