The procrastinating chancellor – Scholz himself has substantiated this image in the past few months of the crisis, but his keynote address on the EU in Prague is intended to convey a spirit of optimism. The signal: Germany is no longer just there, but ready to go ahead.
Giving big speeches is not one of Olaf Scholz’s strengths, but today’s lesson in front of students at Charles University in Prague was still a tough one: Not because the German Chancellor had managed to make the audience recognizable under the headphones for his European reform ideas inspire. What is remarkable about the Prague speech is probably the somewhat more fundamental realization: Scholz has very concrete ideas on the subject of Europe and seems aware that they can only be implemented if Germany is strongly committed.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shook the European Union’s security order to the core. For decades, the EU relied on cooperation with President Vladimir Putin. It was ignored that whoever Brussels wanted as a European “partner” obviously based its foreign policy on very different maxims than the EU defines for itself: military interventions in Chechnya, Ukraine, Syria or Libya – always with the goal in mind , to expand one’s own power, to expand one’s possibilities of influence. Not to mention the growing pressure on its own population, on activists and members of the opposition.
Half a year after the shock, Olaf Scholz analyzes Putin’s behavior as clearly as many Europeans, and especially those who live in the east of the EU and in the vicinity of Russia, would have liked the representative of Europe’s largest economic power to do much earlier had. The united Europe is “a thorn in Putin’s side,” says Scholz. “Because it doesn’t fit into his worldview, in which smaller countries have to submit to a handful of major European powers.” Europe is open “to all European nations that share our values. Above all, however, it is the rejection of imperialism and autocracy.”
Scholz explains in surprisingly concrete terms what must follow from this statement: Support for Ukraine – economic, financial, political, humanitarian, military – will be maintained for as long as necessary. Germany has “fundamentally changed direction” in recent months, which means nothing other than the admission that the federal government must have previously followed a course that the chancellor considers wrong from the current perspective. Scholz left open the direction in which things went back then, leaving room for interpretation, for example for those critics who accused Germany of hesitation and hesitation when, in their opinion, a clear edge was required on the international stage.
The German chancellor is now taking the clear edge with a six-month delay. State-of-the-art weapons would be delivered in the near future, what exactly, Scholz leaves vague. However, he counters the fears of many experts that the extent of Western support will only be enough to just keep Ukraine from capitulating. However, according to the opinion frequently expressed, they will never be able to effectively push back the Russian invaders. However, according to Scholz, the aim of the aid is to position the Ukrainian armed forces so well that they can “defend their country permanently”.
The chancellor knows that it will not be enough to support the attacked country only with weapons that one has and can spare. At the beginning of the war it was still said that the delivery of modern Western weapons was ineffective because the training time was too long, but according to Scholz the federal government has now recognized that the perspective must be much longer and that the quality of the weapons is significantly higher than it should be beginning of the war.
Scholz could “imagine, for example, that Germany would take on special responsibility for building up Ukrainian artillery and air defense.” He thus embeds the big term “responsibility” in a very concrete offer. Germany is willing to take on a very important task to achieve the goal of permanently securing Ukraine’s sovereignty. At the same time, this statement is a signal to the European partners who, over the weeks and months, have not only missed the willingness but the will to assume real responsibility in the German attitude in the Ukraine war.
Scholz wouldn’t be Scholz if he didn’t use the subjunctive and a filler like “for example” to cloak this far-reaching offer almost beyond recognition. But since the chancellor’s tendency to formulate somewhat colorlessly is well known, the EU partners are likely to take the content of the statement very seriously.
Not least because Scholz does not remain at this level, but also fundamentally calls for a new security policy orientation for the EU after the war in Ukraine. Because the collapse of the old European security order based on partnership with Russia has plunged the Union into chaos in this area. A security order with Russia is unthinkable in the long term, because the same values ??are not shared and there is no willingness to comply with applicable rules such as international law. But what is to be used to replace the old order?
When Olaf Scholz calls in his speech that the European states need “better coordination of our defense efforts”, the perspective here extends beyond the Ukraine war to the realization that the EU will be in constant conflict with Russia in the coming decades.
The chancellor notes that there is “a lot of catching up to do” when it comes to defense against threats from the air and space and calls for a “jointly structured air defense system”. Germany will invest heavily in air defense and design it in such a way “that our European neighbors can also participate.” This would not only make defense “more cost-effective and efficient,” argues the former finance minister, but would also “enhance security for the whole of Europe.”
But Scholz also knows that defense policy is not the only area in which the EU needs to change in order to meet the challenges of the future. He emphatically advocates reforming the right of veto, which repeatedly ties the hands of the EU on so many political issues, and gradually coming to majority decisions. With every additional member state, “the risk that a single country will use its veto to prevent all others from making progress,” the German chancellor argues.
But Scholz is aware that he is in the east of the EU, where many heads of state are concerned that in a reformed Union they will always be overruled by majority decision. According to the Chancellor, one could start in areas “in which it is particularly important that we speak with one voice”. Scholz has the sanctions policy in mind, or also questions of human rights.
But the EU does not have to speak with one voice when it comes to condemning human rights violations in other countries. Scholz knows only too well that even within the Union, the standards of the rule of law are not shared by all members, for example when the EU states Hungary and Poland successively restrict civil rights and freedom of the press. According to Scholz, it seems sensible to him “to consistently link payments to compliance with constitutional standards”.
The European Union must comprehensively reorganize itself after realizing that with Putin’s Russia you will permanently face an aggressive opponent in the coming decades. Many experts attach crucial importance to the role Germany will play in this process: Germany could decisively weaken the EU if, despite its economic strength, it remains hesitant, limits itself to “participation” but does not play to its creative power. However, Germany could also strengthen the Union if it is willing to set priorities, make offers and actively shape it. Olaf Scholz tried to make it clear today that he sees his country in the latter role. Good news, long overdue, for the EU and the West as a whole.