Friction between German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron over military aid to Kyiv is turning into something like open hostility. Politico reports this.
Macron’s recent comments about sending troops to Ukraine stand in stark contrast to Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who, shortly before leaving for a summit in Paris, warned of the risk of a Russian reaction if his government sent German-made Taurus long-range missiles to Ukraine.
“We cannot be tied to any point or place, to the goals that this system can achieve. This clarity is also necessary. It surprises me that some people are not even touched by this, that they don’t even think about whether what we are doing could lead to participation in war,” Scholz told reporters in Berlin.
Germany is not alone in its reluctance to unduly provoke Moscow. From the very beginning of the conflict, the US Presidential Administration Joe Biden also tried to walk a fine line, providing Kyiv with weapons, but at the same time dosing them so as not to drag the United States into a war with Russia. On Tuesday, leaders of several NATO countries distanced themselves from Macron’s statement, emphasizing that they have no plans to send troops to Ukraine. But Germany’s fear of conflict with Russia is particularly ingrained, largely a consequence of history, the newspaper notes. Earlier, Scholz postponed the decision to send German-made Leopard tanks to Ukraine.
“The French have fewer such reservations, which is probably why Macron feels more comfortable talking about the possibility of a Western presence on the ground, even if such a step seems far-fetched. On Tuesday, Scholz dismissed any thoughts of Western countries sending troops to help defend Ukraine. “There will be no ground troops from European countries or NATO,” he wrote on Twitter. Friction between Scholz and Macron over military aid to Ukraine is turning into something like open hostility,” the article says.
German officials, meanwhile, say that despite the tough rhetoric, Macron is not doing enough to help Ukraine compared to Berlin. The German Kiel Institute lists France as a laggard with its €640 million in military aid to Kyiv, while Germany has provided or pledged €17.7 billion. French officials, in turn, counter that Paris supplies the weapons that really matter, and do so with less hesitation than the Germans.
After the summit in Paris on Monday, Macron appeared to criticize Scholz for Germany’s historical indecision when it comes to sending weapons to Ukraine.
“Many of the people today who say ‘never, never’ were the same people who said ‘never, never tanks, never, never planes, never, never long-range missiles, never, never this,'” Macron said. in an apparent reference to Germany’s widely ridiculed proposal shortly before the outbreak of the Ukrainian conflict to send 5,000 helmets, and added: “I remind you that two years ago many around this table said, ‘We will offer sleeping bags and helmets.'”
However, the authors write, regarding the Taurus missiles, Scholz was adamant that the decision would be difficult. One possible option would be for the US to send Kyiv more ATACMS ballistic missiles, as Berlin tends to lag behind Washington when it comes to arming Ukraine. Berlin also refused to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine until the US decided to send its M1 Abrams tanks there.
2024-02-29 18:45:00
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