A draft by the Left Faction (BSW) calling for peace in Ukraine was rejected by the majority of the votes in the Saxon State Parliament on Thursday. The draft, which was tabled, urged the government of the Free State to make diplomatic efforts for a peace initiative in the German federal council.
Apart from the BSW faction, the AfD faction also voted in favor of the draft. The CDU, SPD and the Greens voted against, while the Left Party abstained. In total, 42 votes were in favor of the draft, with 51 against.
Prior to the vote, BSW state parliamentarian Nico Rudolph justified the draft by referring to opinion polls, in which a majority of Saxons called for a diplomatic solution to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. The BSW draft also included demands for a halt to the delivery of weapons to Ukraine, particularly the delivery of Taurus short-range missiles.
CDU state parliamentarian Marko Schiemann justified the rejection of the draft by his faction, citing the Bundestag’s primary responsibility in foreign policy. He emphasized that the CDU, however, wishes for “peace in Ukraine” and reminded the audience that Saxon CDU Minister-President Michael Kretschmer had also criticized the delivery of weapons to Ukraine and called for more diplomacy.
SPD state parliamentarian Sophie Koch spoke in her speech about Ukrainian refugees in Saxony, while Green state parliamentarian Wolfram Günther criticized the BSW initiative for weakening the “defensive capabilities of Ukraine and Germany”.
In the debate, the Saxon AfD leader Jörg Urban reiterated that his faction rejects the delivery of Taurus missiles to Ukraine, as demanded by CDU leader Friedrich Merz.
For the Left Party, Stefan Hartmann called for a “new policy of détente” and the “return to international law, taking into account a multipolar world order”.