FDP Defense Politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann has called on CDU/CSU Chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz to fundamentally change the Ukraine policy after a election victory.
“Friedrich Merz has the chance to become a great Chancellor if he does the opposite of what Olaf Scholz does” Strack-Zimmermann told the Funke Media Group. If he hesitates and “is a bit too soft” Merz will be “one of many Chancellors.” The CDU leader has the chance to “really make a difference now.” She is eager to see if he has the courage to do so. “If not, it would be historically dramatic.”
With a re-election of Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) not in sight, the chair of the Defense Committee in the European Parliament does not expect it: “Olaf Scholz is history.” Strack-Zimmermann accused the Chancellor of instrumentalizing the Ukraine in the election campaign and turning the delivery of Taurus missiles into a peace issue. “So, after the motto, I won’t deliver Taurus because I bring your peace. Using something the Ukrainians ask for to fuel one’s own election campaign is simply unacceptable.”
Strack-Zimmermann described her stance on Ukraine policy under the government of the SPD-led coalition as her “heaviest political decision.” “And that’s not what one wants. We are a team, and I am a team player, and I also belong to those who will carry through uncomfortable decisions in the faction, even if they are not popular.” She had to speak out, she said, “to tell the Chancellor that there are limits to loyalty when it comes to supporting Ukraine, when it comes to making it clear that it is completely and unimaginable that borders in Europe can be shifted again because one overruns the other.”
FDP leader and Finance Minister Christian Lindner had supported her anti-Scholz course, she said. He could have held her back, but did not. There were moments when Lindner “asked her not to only go after Olaf Scholz but more at the general situation in Ukraine. Not playing on man, but more the ball.” But they had to “unfortunately play on man because the problem has a name, and that starts with Olaf and ends with Scholz.”
Scholz had never allowed a two-on-two discussion about Ukraine, Strack-Zimmermann reported. Chancellor’s Office Minister Wolfgang Schmidt had told her, “the more she puts him under pressure, the more stubborn he becomes and the more obstinate he becomes.” And that could only be confirmed.
The FDP politician criticized the SPD’s stance on Ukraine as “unbearable” in many parts. Social Democracy simply puts on a pair of glasses and always sees the Russian view, and she has never felt that the Chancellor and some others have put on the Ukrainian glasses, she judged.