The new German Defense Minister, Boris Pistorius, is regarded by polls as one of the most competent and popular politicians across the Oder. In the RTL Trendbarometer survey of February 21, which ranged from 0 to 100 points, he received 53. Chancellor Olaf Scholz was only third (45 points). The vast majority of Germans believe that under Pistorius “the country is in good hands”. Malicious people claim (yes, yes, you can find such people in the German media) that after Christina Lambrecht’s not-so-successful tenure, even “a vacuum cleaner bag would do better at the Ministry of Defense and be just as popular as Pistorius. ” And German defense policy “can only be abolished with humor.” A good dose of humour. Especially since, one year after the “Zeitenwende” announced by Chancellor Scholz, Pistorius admitted that the Bundeswehr was “unable to defend the country in a situation of openly executed brutal aggression”. This is what he was supposed to say yesterday at a meeting of the SPD parliamentary group in the Bundestag and was reported by the tabloid Bild.
This cast a shadow over Olaf Scholz’s speech today in the Bundestag, in which he outlined the achievements of the “Zeitenwende” (temporary change) he announced on February 27, 2022: arms deliveries to Ukraine, independence from raw material supplies from Russia, talks with India, Brazil, China, relations with the US are improving. It took him 19 minutes to get to the subject most Germans associate with the Zeitenwende, a special one-off fund to modernize the Bundeswehr worth 100 billion euros. But he didn’t have much to say about it. “We will not neglect our armed forces,” he remarked and left the stage moments later. The opposition booed and CDU chief Friedrich Merz accused the chancellor of promising a year ago that Germany would spend 2 percent of its GDP. defense GDP. Meanwhile, “we are even further from this goal today than we were a year ago.” Of this 100 billion euros, not a single euro has yet been spent. “The Bundeswehr has huge deficits and the Zeitenwende has still not started,” Roderich Kiesewetter, responsible for foreign policy at the Christian Democrats, also told the newspaper “Augsburger Allgemeine”. “The military has lost a year and is bald, even more than early 2022.” – added.
According to him, not only equipment and ammunition are missing, but also the national security strategy, which Scholz also announced a year ago and which was supposed to be presented at the Munich security conference in February, has still not been produced. Work on it stalled in disputes over powers between the Chancellor’s office and Annalena Baerbock’s State Department. Not surprisingly, observers, including German citizens, are under the impression that the Zeitenwende is all about talking about problems, promising to improve them, and then doing nothing. Such a perpetual motion machine. After all, the reform of the Bundeswehr is no joke, after decades of neglect and rare bureaucratization. It is easier and cheaper to talk about achievements, to pretend to be the main supplier of weapons to Ukraine. And point the finger at others, even Poland, as the German ambassador to Poland, Thomas Bagger, did on Twitter. Poland also bought billions of raw materials from Russia, he wrote. Phew, lighter now. Repeat it often enough and maybe people will forget about Nord Stream 2, Ms. Schwesig and Gerhard Schroeder on the Rosneft board of directors. Germany is a mature democracy, where tax returns from non-transparent foundations associated with Gazprom are burned at the tax office.
As we also learned from the New York Times, Germany is dissatisfied with its allies when it comes to the Leopard 2 tanks. It turned out that “many countries cannot supply them for various reasons”. Poland, among others, will not meet its obligations in full, and as the “NYT” states, it has still sent too few. Only, unlike Germany, Poland has already delivered everything it promised, ie equipment worth 2.4 billion euros, including more than 300 tanks. It really delivered, not just promised. For example, of the declared deliveries of 37 howitzers (155 mm), Germany delivered only 14. Not to mention other equipment. This can, of course, be regarded as the performance of the Zeitenwende, but at a snail’s pace. And Ukraine does not have much time. The German Social Democrats naturally defend their chancellor’s attitude, arguing, among other things, that part of society is afraid of an escalation of the war, that Scholz does not want to scandalize them. It’s just that if he acted more decisively and defined what he meant, maybe they would be convinced?
Be that as it may, a year after the announcement, the Zeitenwende is here, but at the same time it is not. Moreover, Berlin is sending us completely contradictory signals. On the one hand proposing cooperation, talking about Polish-German partnership, and on the other hand warnings that our five minutes will soon be over (former ambassador Rolf Nikel), and besides, we are no better than them (current ambassador). Perhaps our German partners can define what they actually want from us: partnership, or some other polite submission and acknowledgment of “Berlin’s natural leadership” (which excludes partnership), because the wall-to-wall wall-to-wall stream is slowly becoming wearisome.
Source: wPolityce