Russia: Germany and France urged to 'stand up' by expert
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The German Green Party’s candidate to succeed Ms Merkel has set out steps to implement the creation of a European Union armed forces in the party’s foreign policy agenda. Polls in Germany suggest that the Green Party’s Annalena Baerbock has a high chance of becoming the nation’s first Green Chancellor. Ms Baerbock has called for the creation of EU military units that would come under the direct control of the European parliament.
Speaking to German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung she said: “In my view, we have to bundle our capabilities together more strongly as Europeans.
“Europe’s defence spending is three or four times as high as Russia’s but our capabilities are limited because we duplicate a lot.
“That’s inefficient.”
In response to this announcement by the German Green Party David Herdson tweeted: “This is a spectacularly stupid policy, putting gesture ahead of security for two big reasons.
“Firstly, a European army only makes sense if there’s a European foreign policy to enforce and there isn’t and can’t be without a true European government.
“So that should be the call.”
Over the weekend two surveys were conducted in Germany that showed the Green Party levelling with Ms Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union Party, CDU, in popularity.
Another poll discovered that 27 percent of business executives and public-sector “decisionmakers” stated their willingness to vote for Ms Baerbock.
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However, only 14 percent of the 1,500 business executives polled supported her CDU opponent, Armin Laschet.
Now that a Green-led German government is a distinct possibility the party has attracted serious scrutiny over its defence policies.
The German Green Party has traditionally been pacifist and campaigned for the nation to withdraw from Nato and remove US atomic weapons from its territory.
However, the Greens have adopted a more pragmatic and less principled approach in recent years.
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Now the German Green Party has become a major critic of both Moscow and Beijing.
On China, the leader of the German Greens said that “dialogue and steeliness” should be exercised.
However, following the cautious attitude of Ms Merkel, she noted that China was too large a market for Germany to risk cutting off-trade.
Taking a shot at the current administration’s relationship with Moscow, Ms Baerbock criticised the “foreign policy passivity” of the CDU government.
A point of contention for the German Green Party is the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project from Russia to Germany.
The German Green’s are against the pipeline that Ms Merkel’s party has controversially championed.
The Green Party, in its new-found pragmatism, has even claimed that US atomic bombs could provisionally remain on German soil.
However, last week Ms Baerbock told Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, that “a world free of nuclear weapons would be a safer world”.
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