German Minister President Michael Kretschmer has called on EU member states to respond more assertively to the criticism from US Vice President JD Vance. “We must define our interests, advocate for them and stand up straight” Kretschmer told the Welt newspaper.
He emphasized the importance of strengthening the European economy to be able to match the United States on an equal footing. “Take Germany, for example: Our strength has never been the military, but our economic performance. We, as the EU as a whole, must become economically strong again, closing the gap in digitalization, AI and platforms and producing technological top performances” Kretschmer said. “Europe must again produce technological top performances. Whoever is economically strong is strong overall and can engage in a dialogue with the US and China.”
Kretschmer believes that for economic growth, the European Union needs to “radically reduce bureaucracy and stop with the all-encompassing over-regulation.” “The large-scale bureaucracy is the biggest obstacle to becoming a more agile and dynamic economy and politics. It must be possible to repair a railway track within two years without a large development plan or a time-consuming environmental impact assessment. And of course, we need the corresponding investments in research and development” he said.
The minister president does not believe the EU will play a significant role in the negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. “It’s like the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021: The United States acts and we can only watch” Kretschmer said. “And what’s even more serious is that US representatives are now negotiating a deal that might bring an end to the fighting, but dictates to us that Ukraine be admitted to the EU, that we pay for Ukraine’s reconstruction and that our soldiers be deployed in a future buffer zone. And in the end, the Americans will secure for themselves the Ukraine’s natural resources as a quid pro quo for their weapon deliveries.”
This cannot be allowed to happen, Kretschmer said. “But Europe is itself to blame for this mess. It has failed as a mediator in this conflict. The result is that European foreign ministers now have to beg to sit at the negotiating table with the US, Russia and Ukraine and in the end, they will have to do what Trump wants” the CDU politician said.