The German Bundestag rejected the delivery of Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine. A motion by the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in which this German weapons system was explicitly mentioned did not obtain a majority today. Only 182 deputies voted in favor, 480 against and there were five abstentions.
The leader of the parliamentary group, Friedrich Merz, had already called on members of the SPD, Greens and FDP to join the CDU/CSU proposal. “Ukraine continues to not receive the full amount of material it urgently needs to effectively deter Russia’s war of aggression,” he said.
Assurance of more military support
Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) assured Ukraine of more military support in the Bundestag. However, in a debate about the war in Ukraine, he left open whether this also included the Taurus cruise missile.
When asked by CDU MP Jürgen Hardt whether the “required additional long-range weapons systems” called for in a coalition proposal should be understood as including the Taurus, Pistorius said: “I cannot answer that. I read the application. Candidates will have thought about their part. (…) I am not a member of the group.”
Unlike German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, for example, Pistorius is a member of the government, but not the Bundestag.