The Bundeswehr is helping in the fight against the corona virus at home. That is why some want to reduce the number of missions abroad. The Defense Minister has completely different European ideas.
Berlin (dpa) - Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has announced a continuation of Bundeswehr operations in the fight against terrorism in the Sahel region in Africa, despite the Corona crisis.
"There are many who are now calling for the soldiers to be withdrawn in the face of the Corona crisis," said the CDU politician at the German Press Agency in Berlin. However, terrorists would not consider the fight against corona.
Especially in Mali, but also in Iraq, terrorists used the current situation to make up for the terrain. "That is why it is important that we stay there on site," said Kramp-Karrenbauer. Only on Wednesday the EU training mission in Mali (EUTM Mali) announced that it had largely suspended its operations due to the spread of the corona virus. The Bundeswehr is represented in the mission with around 150 men and women.
The task of the Bundeswehr soldiers is "to be able to continue to deploy, especially in these times," said Kramp-Karrenbauer. "We have our special skills and we are in particular those who provide long-term support through training and the establishment of self-supporting structures."
For constitutional reasons, Kramp-Karrenbauer refused to allow the Bundeswehr to participate in the military anti-terror mission "Barkhane" led by Paris. "We are in close contact with the French because the overall approach in the Sahel region must of course go beyond the actual fight against terrorism." It is about "the question of how we can secure areas sustainably in this way, in particular by strengthening the local security forces themselves, so that we can also do more".
The Bundeswehr fulfills this task "bilaterally in Niger. We do that as part of Minusma, the UN mission in Mali. And we do that through the European training mission, also in Mali," said Kramp-Karrenbauer. The Federal Government would propose to the Bundestag to continue these mandates. "But we want to involve them in a common Sahel strategy in the federal government, but above all in consultation with France," said the minister. The very different individual missions in the Sahel region would have to be combined into a common strategy better than before.
Kramp-Karrenbauer left open the question of whether she wanted to belong to a future government after the 2021 Bundestag election. "The question is not in the room," she said. "First of all, I am now seeing that in the next few days the decision to succeed Tornado can be made, that our people are doing well in the missions and that we as the Bundeswehr are providing our help in the corona crisis."
The priority is to clarify the question of the successor to the aging fighter aircraft Tornado, said Kramp-Karrenbauer. "If the last tornado is to be decommissioned in 2030, the replacement machines will need to be prepared accordingly." That is why the decisions should now be launched, "even if the first budgetary questions after that may not be answered until the next legislative period."
In addition, she wants to advance the European armaments projects in this legislative period, said Kramp-Karrenbauer. For example, she mentioned the submarine cooperation with Norway and "the two major projects of the future, the fighter aircraft system of the future, together with France and Spain, and the main battle tank of the future, which we are also developing together with France".
When asked whether she saw links with the Greens as a possible coalition partner for the time after the next Bundestag election, the minister answered openly. "There is a collaboration with the Greens from the Defense Committee that is very fairly controversial, less ideological," she said. Regardless of who will then negotiate with whom, "it will most certainly be coalition negotiations in which the subject of foreign and security policy plays a major role and where there must also be important agreements."