If Europe is to become militarily effective and able to protect itself from economic coercion, it needs Germany to take the lead
That policy looked foolish after Vladimir Putin first attacked Ukraine in 2014, and collapsed altogether a year ago. Three days after Russia’s invasion, Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced the, or “epochal change”, to an emergency session of the Bundestag. He identified two giant tasks—to “invest much more in the security of our country” and to “guarantee a secure energy supply”. Twelve months on, how much has changed? The stakes could not be higher for Germany, or for Europe.
Germany is also busy building clean-energy infrastructure. Renewable power generation hit a record level in 2022, and the new target is for its share of total generation to reach 80% by 2030. Auctions for offshore wind sites in the North Sea and Baltic Sea are under way and, even before the invasion, some 2% of Germany’s land was to be reserved for onshore wind farms.
Reforming the Bundeswehr was always going to be a tall order. Even so, in the year since Mr Scholz made the speech his record has been disappointing, perhaps because he spoke at the moment when the danger was at its height; as the threat to Kyiv receded, so did the chancellor’s sense of urgency. He wasted the next nine months hanging on to a defence minister who everyone could see was not up to the job.
Belgique Dernières Nouvelles, Belgique Actualités
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