After the decision on the delivery of battle tanks in Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) hopes for more discipline in the traffic light coalition. “Maybe today has also helped some to think about what they say in the future,” said Scholz on Wednesday on ZDF.
In the past few days, the FDP politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann and the Green politician Anton Hofreiter have sharply criticized Scholz and accused him of being hesitant about the battle tank decision. The chair of the Bundestag Defense Committee, Strack-Zimmermann, called his communication a “disaster”. The SPD parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag, Rolf Mützenich, then accused Strack-Zimmermann of “gasping”. “Ms. Strack-Zimmermann and others talk us into a military conflict,” he said.
Scholz supported the statement by Mützenich. “Rolf Mützenich has expressed himself very clearly and, I think, in a very solidary manner,” he says. The chancellor reiterated that he would take no account of heated debates in his foreign policy. “The agenda in other capitals is not based on when someone wants to appear on television again. And that’s why I’m quite sure that this will also come to an end. At least I hope so.”
Scholz also emphasized that there were no differences within the federal government on the battle tank question. “The government is completely unanimous in its approach. And that applies to the Finance Minister (Christian Lindner, FDP) just as much, to say it in advance, as it does to the Economics Minister (Robert Habeck, Greens).”
