'All eyes on Scholz' in Washington +++ Papers call for German leadership in NATO
Wednesday, 10th July
Good morning.
As the NATO summit begins in Washington, the papers continue to be preoccupied with Germany’s defence and security policy and its standing within the alliance.
The common tone is of concern: articles from several papers insinuate that the country is not ‘stepping up’ to its increasingly crucial role in holding up NATO’s ‘European pillar’ and supporting Ukraine. The row over lacklustre levels of military spending in the new budget continues to draw attention, and is being used as a symbol of the country’s continuing unreadiness to take a leading role in European security policy.
Süddeutsche: Scholz must dispel doubts about Zeitenwende
Daniel Brössler files an article from the travelling press pack in DC, assessing Germany’s standing with its NATO allies. Scholz arrived last night, and will have his first official meeting this morning: the new British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer — another sign of the overtures being made between London and Berlin since Labour’s victory last Thursday. After that, he’ll meet Senate leaders, Chuck Schumer (Dem) and Mitch McConnell (Rep). A big part of his job will be reassuring allies that Germany will carry its fair share of the burden of increased defence spending to meet new challenges.
Brössler notes that, despite Scholz’s claim before taking off for the summit that concerns about Germany’s commitment to the Zeitenwende was ‘purely a German debate’, not an international one, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius’ comments that he was ‘annoyed’ by his allocation in the budget will have ensured that to be impossible.
Pistorius received another €1.2bn on top of his existing €52bn for next year, well short of the extra €6.7bn he had requested. ‘It would be surprising’, Brössler says, ‘if nobody in Washington had noticed’.
Scholz has now promised that the annual military budget will be raised to €80bn by 2028, though he has offered no details on how that will happen. Ingo Gädechens, the CDU’s representative for defence who has travelled with Pistorius’ team, has called the ‘25 budget allocation for defence ‘the end of the Zeitenwende’, and accused Scholz of working according to Louis XV’s infamous motto: après moi, le déluge.
Brössler says that ‘many fear that this could be the last summit with a US president who is favourable to NATO’, referencing Donald Trump’s recently sceptical comments about the Alliance and the outsized US role in upholding it.
“This is another reason why all eyes are on Scholz. While France is facing a difficult time forming a government and the UK is reorganising itself under Labour, Germany looks like a haven of stability, at least from the outside. The Chancellor's circle say they are very aware of the expectations. Germany is the largest EU country and one of the strongest military powers in NATO. Many have orientated themselves towards Germany. "We now want to meet this responsibility, without creating the impression of leadership", said one advisor to the Chancellor.”
This final quote speaks volumes. Germany has had the expectation of military leadership thrust upon it, entirely unwillingly, in the space of two years, and is now (largely begrudgingly) attempting to meet those expectations without raising them any further.
Spiegel: Are we ready for war with Putin?
Spiegel’s lead article this week by Markus Becker asks similar questions of Germany’s leadership, but in even starker terms: are we prepared to go to war with Putin to defend Ukraine? Finding an answer to this, Becker says, is hardest for Germany.
Nobody wants to have this debate because it is highly unpleasant, especially for the Germans. During the Cold War, the West Germans were the biggest beneficiaries of the NATO security guarantee. The Federal Republic was a frontline state; it would have been the first victim of a Soviet offensive. Others are now in this position: Firstly Ukraine, then Poland and the Baltic states. The uncomfortable question for the Germans is: are they prepared to stand up for the security of these NATO partners in the same way that NATO has done for the Germans for decades?
FAZ: Concerns about NATO mean Germany must take strategic decisions
Another paper, a similar message: Berthold Kohler, one of the senior editors of the liberal-conservative Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung, lays out his concerns regarding the future of NATO. Putin is acting like Stalin, resorting to military force to secure ‘satellite states’. At the same time, there are serious doubts about whether the US will remain a ‘friend to NATO’.
“The USA's growing disinterest in the fate of Europe, which does not have its only representative in Trump, but one of the most extreme, is the second major challenge for the alliance. Europeans must invest more in their security, regardless of the outcome of the US election.”
But there are problems within the ‘European pillar’ of NATO, too.
“In many countries, parties such as the AfD are enjoying popularity because they don't think Putin is the problem, but the USA. In Poland, as in France, there are parties and politicians who downright hate Germany. A President Le Pen would no longer offer Berlin talks on whether the French nuclear force could also protect Germany.”
For all these reasons, Germany must step up to the plate in leading NATO, ‘making strategic decisions without the guidance of its most powerful ally’.
“Seven decades after joining NATO, Germany should be in a position to do so. But even this eventuality cannot be viewed without concern, at least not with the current government, which still buries its head in the sand too often.”