Navigating Germany’s Defense Pivot

Well, I have to just start, you know, with the obligatory question about Zeit und Wende.

And I hope I pronounced that one correctly.

Okay.

I know it was started by a previous chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who is not necessarily from your party, but it's become this buzzword, this sort of catch-all for Germany's rearmament.

And so as you are looking back at it, and as we are, you know, being part of it, this rearmament period, how would you evaluate your government's commitment to this pivot to increase defense spending? And what do you see as the biggest test for Zayten Bente and whether this was permanent or there's some debates going on in the country right now? And I just wanted to add one last thing is that here in the US, we're talking a lot about the cost of servicing debts with bond markets.

Germany is actually in a very advantageous position.

So how are you thinking about balancing budgets, the ability to borrow, and then the future of German defense?

Thanks for this nice portfolio of questions, but very important ones.

Thanks for having me today here.

So happy to do that.

This German word, Zeitenwende, for you, not everybody understands what's behind it in Germany, I mean, not because with regard to pronunciation.

But your question, you know, what does that mean? Is this something that will stay forever? What is Germany actually doing with that? I think we have come to learn the hard way in Germany and Europe.

because of the full invasion by Russia against Ukraine.

And that was when then-German Chancellor Olaf Scholz from the Social Democratic Party used that word Zeitenwende for the first time in a speech in the Bundestag.

I was sitting in the plenary hall, and he did not get a lot of applause by his own MPs back then, whereas we, as the conservatives, were giving standing ovations.

It was a very surprising situation.

What has followed for quite some while during the last government in Germany, after this fantastic speech by the chancellor, nothing really happened.

Too little, too late.

It took a while to both the political bubble, the political universe in Berlin, learn that it's really serious and it's not enough to give like 5,000 helmets for soldiers.

That was the decision being made by Berlin.

the government back then and we thought back then or the German government at least thought this is sufficient support for Ukraine of course fast forward now Germany as I said has learned a lot we are now the largest donors having supported Ukraine with financial funds by many many tens and tens and tens of billions of euros but also with regard to training of many thousands of Ukrainian soldiers in Germany so I think This learning process is still ongoing.

Zeitgeist is not a fast fashion thing.

Unfortunately, again, we have experienced a rude awakening.

What does that mean? Talking about lessons learned.

In combination with Donald Trump's second presidency, NATO, defense spending, and all this thing.