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Olaf Scholz finds the Ukraine debates embarrassing. Is it up to the Chancellor to assess this? Our columnist thinks: Scholz is making a fool of himself.
Last week, the Chancellor mocked foreign policy debates in Germany. Now you may be asking yourself: Why is Peace bringing this up again now? That’s what I want to tell you: because I think that Olaf Scholz hasn’t yet gotten enough of his statements.
The Chancellor is a clever man, knowledgeable on many topics and comprehensively educated. I honestly have respect for Olaf Scholz, including his Ukraine policy. That’s why I was surprised to suddenly read a lot of nonsense from him in just a few lines.
Scholz was a guest at the “Europe 2024” conference, which was organized by the Berlin “Tagesspiegel,” among others, which then also printed it. . In response, he complained that this debate “cannot be surpassed in terms of ridiculousness.”
Scholz’s attitude raises some questions
Unfortunately, we don’t know whether he meant the statement itself or the debate about how Mützenich would have been better off not saying that. The fact that Scholz raises two new questions with one answer is not new. This was also the case with its position on the delivery of the Taurus cruise missile.
Scholz was also asked about this in the interview. That was the next debate, which he found “unadulterated and embarrassing.” Elsewhere he had already said that foreign policy in Germany is not debated on the merits, but rather on the basis of “weird flags that someone pulls up or down.” And guess what? I started to ask myself whether it is up to the head of government to classify debates as right or wrong just because he doesn’t feel like taking part in them. And whether it is appropriate for a chancellor to declare debates stupid just because they raise unpleasant questions.
On top of that. Scholz reported that after he entered the Bundestag in 1998, it bothered him how the NATO mission in Kosovo was being discussed. There were “many abstract debates about what this has to do with the German past, and few about what the concrete situation is in Kosovo.” Those were discussions about feelings. I asked myself how Scholz could so dismiss a debate that took place just eight years after reunification, which had to overcome major concerns in Europe about Germany’s remilitarization. And how a historically well-read chancellor can babble on so ahistorically. Incidentally, contemporary witnesses remember that Scholz warned SPD dissidents before the Kosovo vote not to endanger the young red-green coalition. This was of course a very mature foreign policy argument.
Sounds a bit like North Korea
The word sensitivities also annoys me. The Chancellor claims to take many Germans’ fears of nuclear war seriously. Are fear and worry not sensitivities? And why is the concern that Germany can do too little for Ukraine a false perception? And since when does the Chancellor decide on permissible and inadmissible sensitivities?
Scholz wants debates in which it is highlighted how much his government is helping Ukraine and in which his attitude is recognized not as hesitation but as prudence. Did he really say that? Sounds a bit like North Korea.
Praise be to you, great Chancellor, and praise be your great achievements – but not with me.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
