Before his trip to Poland, CDU leader Friedrich Merz accused Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) of serious failure to deliver weapons to Ukraine. “His announcements about military support for Ukraine do not stand up to scrutiny,” Merz told the newspapers of the Funke media group.
“The German public and parliament are being deceived. And the federal government is not doing what the Bundestag decided: namely to supply heavy weapons.”
Merz, who is also chairman of the Union in the Bundestag, begins a two-day visit to the Polish capital of Warsaw this Wednesday. From a Polish point of view, Berlin is too hesitant to supply arms to Ukraine, which has been attacked by Russia. Warsaw is also disappointed with a planned exchange of rings: it has surrendered more than 200 tanks to Ukraine, but is unhappy with the German offer of compensation.
The ring exchange had “become a dead end,” said Merz. He called for a public debate about “how trustworthy our government still is in our own country, but also and especially in Central and Eastern Europe”.
Merz described the fact that the FDP and the Greens are now proposing to supply Ukraine directly with tanks as daily “proof of distrust in their own chancellor”. The debate within the coalition about the arms deliveries revealed the inner turmoil in the traffic light coalition and the chancellor’s “unwillingness to lead”.
