This is not the first time Defense Secretary Christine Lambrecht has had to face criticism for her conduct of office. Especially for its sluggish procurement policy, it attracts the displeasure of the opposition. Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder is now demanding consequences.
Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder has asked Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht of the SPD to resign. “It would simply be better for Ms. Lambrecht if she gave up voluntarily. Anyone who can’t even order ammunition and finds it difficult to buy some American fighter planes is simply not up to the job,” said the CSU chairman of the ” Picture”.
Most recently, there had been resentment about the sluggish procurement of equipment and weapons for the Bundeswehr, which had not gotten off to a good enough start after the start of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. The Minister of Defense in particular is criticized for this – especially by the CSU.
Lambrecht, on the other hand, blamed her predecessors for the poor equipment in the Bundeswehr. “I found these problems when I took office,” Lambrecht told Spiegel magazine. “What has been neglected over the years and decades, I can’t fix in one fell swoop,” she dismissed criticism of her leadership.
She criticized the fact that the Bundeswehr had been “saved for decades”. In order to compensate for this, there is now “a lot to do” for them. An example is the lack of ammunition. “Far too little has been procured in the past, even ammunition depots have been closed,” said the minister. That is “final now”.
She also announced that the next meeting of the Budget Committee on December 14 would include the ordered F-35 stealth jets. Söder gave the federal government a bad report overall. “The traffic light did not meet the expectations of the Germans. A coalition of departure has become a traffic light that flashes wildly,” the prime minister told the newspaper.