Olaf Scholz now has it in black and white: Poland wants to deliver German-made Leopard 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine. The chancellor now wants to make a quick decision – also about his own tanks?
In the struggle for the delivery of Leopard battle tanks to the Ukraine, Poland is now putting the federal government under concrete pressure to act with an official export application. The Polish government submitted the application to the federal government on Tuesday.
“I also appeal to the German side to join the coalition of countries supporting Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks,” Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak wrote on Twitter. It’s about Europe’s security. The federal government now wants to examine the application “with the necessary urgency”, as a government spokesman told the German Press Agency in Berlin on request.
Poland wants to sell 14 of 247 Leopard 2
Poland has been putting pressure on Germany for a long time in the discussion about the supply of main battle tanks. The week before last, President Andrzej Duda announced that Ukraine would be given 14 Leopard main battle tanks. In total, according to the Ministry of Defense, Poland has 247 Leopard 2 tanks in three different versions (A4, A5 and PL). They were bought in 2002 and 2013 in two tranches from the Bundeswehr stocks for a total of around 200 million euros.
So-called end-use clauses are always built into the purchase contracts of such armaments export deals. This stipulates that the federal government must agree to the transfer to third countries. Responsibility for weapons from Bundeswehr stocks lies with the Ministry of Defence, for exports of major political importance the Federal Security Council, headed by Chancellor Scholz, decides. This body includes all the ministers responsible for security, including Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD).
If necessary, delivery without authorization
It is unclear exactly when the decision on the Polish application will be made. And it is also unclear whether Scholz will then decide on the delivery of his own Leopard tanks. Pistorius has announced several times that the decision can be expected in the next few days. On Saturday, Scholz embarks on a four-day trip to South America. It is quite possible that he would like to clarify the topic beforehand.
Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Monday that if necessary, action would be taken without Berlin’s approval. That would mean a diplomatic scandal.
Poland wants to form a European coalition to supply main battle tanks. So far, however, only Great Britain has promised to supply Challenger 2 main battle tanks. Of the 14 European countries that have Leopard tanks, only Finland, aside from Poland, has so far publicly signaled a willingness to sell some examples.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala made it clear in Berlin that his country does not want to give up the Leopard 2 main battle tanks in favor of Ukraine, which Germany promised in the course of a ring exchange. “It is now not possible to send the Leopards on because we need these tanks for our security,” said Fiala on Tuesday after a meeting with Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) in Berlin. Last year, the Czech Republic made dozens of Soviet-designed T-72 main battle tanks available to Ukraine and received Leopard 2 tanks from Germany as part of the so-called ring swap.
Baerbock has already advanced
Scholz has been criticized for weeks for his reluctance to deliver main battle tanks to Ukraine. Dissatisfaction was also voiced in their own coalition. The government justifies its action, among other things, with the weighing of escalation risks and the necessary international coordination.
Baerbock has already promised Poland a yes to an export application. “If we were asked, we wouldn’t stand in the way,” she said over the weekend. However, it is unclear whether she spoke for the federal government.
Ukraine has been asking for main battle tank supplies to fight the Russian attackers for months. The front line in eastern Ukraine is hardly moving at the moment. With the battle tanks, Ukraine hopes to get back on the offensive and recapture more territory. At the same time, an offensive by Russia is feared for the spring.
Russia: “Such deliveries do not bode well”
The Kremlin warned that German-Russian relations would deteriorate further if the German government agreed to supply Leopard main battle tanks. “Such deliveries do not bode well for the future of relations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday, according to the Russian news agency Interfax. They would leave inevitable traces. The relationship is already at a certain low point.
The Russian leadership has repeatedly criticized western arms deliveries to Ukraine as an escalation. In the past week, however, the spokesman for Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin also said that even Western battle tanks could not prevent Russia from achieving its war goals. In his view, they would only prolong the suffering of civilians.
Does the US supply Abrams tanks after all?
According to a media report, the US government is now considering the delivery of Abrams main battle tanks to Ukraine. An announcement about the commitment of “a larger number” of the American M1 Abrams to ward off the Russian war of aggression could come this week, as the “Wall Street Journal” reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources. According to this, US President Joe Biden is said to have promised German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) in a telephone call last week to have such a delivery checked.
Recently there had been reports that Scholz had made the delivery of the US battle tank a condition for a possible dispatch of German battle tanks. However, according to his US colleague Lloyd Austin, the new Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) had made it clear that there was no such connection. The USA had previously emphasized that it did not consider the provision of the Abrams tank to be sensible for practical reasons.
Source: Stern
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