After weeks of discussions about a possible trip by Chancellor Scholz, opposition leader Merz has now traveled to Ukraine. Solidarity or tactics?
During his visit to Kyiv on Tuesday, CDU chairman Friedrich Merz met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Both talked to each other for a good hour, a Merz spokesman said on Twitter.
“The conversation was exceptionally good in terms of atmosphere and content.” The CDU chairman will first talk to Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) about the content. During the visit, an air alert was given in Kyiv in the afternoon, a dpa reporter reported. That was the first alarm in three and a half days.
While Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) is hesitating about a trip to Kyiv, Merz has traveled to Ukraine. According to dpa information, he arrived in the capital on Tuesday. “One night in a sleeping car on the way to Kyiv,” the 66-year-old had previously written to the short message service Twitter and shared a 17-second video.
From the train, Merz posted: “We have an interesting journey ahead of us and so far I can only say: everything is safe, everything is good and the Ukrainian authorities are extremely cooperative. Very pleasant people. It’s nice to be in this country.”
CDU General Secretary Mario Czaja said on Deutschlandfunk that Kyiv should be about the promise of German arms deliveries made in the Bundestag. “On the other hand, of course, it’s also about showing solidarity and taking the things with you that are now important for Ukraine and for the defense of the Ukrainian population.”
Is it all just a campaign maneuver?
Czaja rejected classifications that the visit could be an election campaign maneuver in view of the upcoming state elections in Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia. “It really has nothing to do with the upcoming state election campaigns,” he said. Merz had already planned the trip on February 22, but the war intervened.
The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael Roth, warned against taking such a trip for partisan reasons. “It’s good if German politicians also travel to Ukraine,” said the SPD politician to the editorial network Germany. “But they must have good reasons for doing so. A bad reason is to take a domestic dispute to Ukraine and want to make a name for yourself there in party politics. That is not appropriate to the drama of the war.”
There had already been a discussion about the opposition leader’s travel plans – and about Chancellor Scholz’s position on the subject. On ZDF he said he had no objections to Merz’s trip. “I approve.” At the same time, the Chancellor made it clear that the fact that Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was uninvited through Ukraine in mid-April would stand in the way of his own trip to Kyiv.
Source: Stern
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