Olaf Scholz after meeting via video conference with Ukrainian leaders at the Chancellery in Berlin on April 19, 2022. LISI NIESNER / AFP
Day by day, the war in Ukraine is electrifying the political debate in Germany a little more. From this point of view, Olaf Scholz’s press conference on Tuesday, April 19, did not have the desired effect. The Chancellor, who has been accused of not helping Ukraine within the limits of her parliamentary majority, wanted to demonstrate that these allegations were unfounded. He didn’t quite succeed.
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Olaf Scholz certainly uttered some strong sentences during his fifteen-minute speech. “We feel immense pain for the victims and also great anger at the Russian President and this senseless war,” he said, accusing Vladimir Putin of “bearing responsibility for the war crimes committed in Ukraine.”
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But the Chancellor had not counted on that. For the past ten days, several heavyweights in his coalition, including his foreign minister, the ecologist Annalena Baerbock, have been demanding the go-ahead for the delivery of heavy weapons to Ukraine. On this point, however, Olaf Scholz remained evasive on Tuesday.
When asked by a journalist whether Germany would supply Leopard tanks to Kyiv, he replied that it was more about providing equipment “for immediate use”, in this case weapons from the former USSR and owned by Eastern European NATO member states. Berlin would then undertake to deliver to the latter the equivalent of what they could deliver to Ukraine.
“We’re behind”
In his speech, in which he kept reminding that it was followed by a video conference with American President Joe Biden and several of his European counterparts, Olaf Scholz insisted that Germany was not “alone”, but that its position was particularly focused on the issuance of Weapons shipments, consistent with that of its allies. “It can be helpful to look at the rest of the world and then you realize that those who are in a comparable situation to Germany are doing the same thing as us,” he said.
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The argument was not convincing. “Too little too late. Germany is insisting on its refusal to deliver heavy weapons. That is letting Ukraine down,” commented the vice-chairman of the conservative parliamentary group, Johann Wadephul (CDU). If such a reaction from an elected member of the opposition was to be expected, the statements ring some members of the majority, on the other hand, like a warning to Olaf Scholz.
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