Federal Government
Scholz counters Baerbock: No aid to Ukraine without debt
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The dispute over aid to Ukraine is coming to a head. It is now being played out openly between the Chancellor and his Foreign Minister.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz has confirmed that he will only agree to additional arms deliveries to Ukraine worth three billion euros if the debt brake is suspended. “The only solution without funding it through cuts everywhere in Germany is additional borrowing,” he said after a meeting with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson in Berlin. “Incidentally, this is the path that virtually every country around us has taken.”
Trouble with Baerbock: Who will hang the flag in the wind?
Scholz rejected the indirect accusation from Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) that he was abusing the issue for election campaign purposes. “I don’t want to discuss whoever is hanging their flag in the wind,” he said.
Baerbock had told “Politico” that it hurt her that in the election campaign, for some people, winning votes for the federal election was more important than Europe’s responsibility for peace. “For me, responsible politics means not hanging the flag to the wind and perhaps hanging it the other way around in election campaigns,” said Baerbock without naming Scholz.
Like the FDP and the Union, the Greens are of the opinion that funding for Ukraine aid is possible through “unplanned expenditure”. However, Article 112 of the Basic Law sets a condition for this: “It may only be granted in the event of an unforeseen and unavoidable need.” An example of such an expenditure was emergency aid for flood victims in 2013 after severe flooding in parts of Germany.
Scholz doesn’t expect a decision until the election
Because of the different approaches, Scholz assumes that the financing issue will not be decided until the election on February 23rd. “This question is up for vote in the federal election: whether you want to do this at the expense of the budget and at the expense of cohesion, justice and investments in the future in Germany, or extra.”
Scholz received support from SPD leader Saskia Esken. If Baerbock refuses to suspend the debt brake, “then she should explain where she wants to save the three billion euros in a budget that is already missing around 20 billion euros,” she told the German Press Agency. “In any case, we are not prepared to restrict internal, external or even social security in our country and thereby jeopardize cohesion.”
dpa
Source: Stern

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