Arms exports: Grand coalition approves last

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Last-minute dealmaker: The old federal government around Olaf Scholz, Angela Merkel and Peter Altmaier approved armaments exports worth billions in their last days of office (archive image)

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Michele Tantussi / REUTERS

The former federal government of the Union and the SPD approved arms exports worth almost five billion euros in the last nine days of their term in office.

This means that the total volume of export permits has risen to a record value of 9.04 billion euros in the current year.

This emerges from a response from the Ministry of Economic Affairs to a request from Left Bundestag member Sevim Dagdelen, which is available to the German Press Agency.

Accordingly, Egypt is by far the number one recipient country.

The country has come under fire for human rights violations and its involvement in the conflicts in Yemen and Libya.

A few days ago, DER SPIEGEL revealed that the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and her then Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) had approved the sale of three warships and 16 air defense systems shortly before the handover on December 8th.

The suppliers are the armaments manufacturers Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems and Diehl Defense.

Economics Minister Peter Altmaier (CDU) informed the Bundestag about this just one day before Olaf Scholz was elected Chancellor - but without mentioning the value of the exports.

The answer from the Ministry of Economic Affairs now shows that until the change of government, war weapons and other armaments worth 4.34 billion euros had been approved for Egypt.

According to an earlier response from the ministry to a parliamentary question, it was only 0.18 billion euros as of November 29.

"A crook"

That means that for Egypt alone, the Merkel / Scholz government has approved arms exports worth more than four billion euros in the last nine days.

Overall, the grand coalition allowed exports amounting to 4.91 billion euros in its last nine days: more than in just under nine months together.

What is explosive is that the government was only executive in office during this period.

It is common practice for a government to stop making far-reaching political decisions at this stage.

The left-wing foreign politician Dagdelen sharply criticized the behavior of today's Chancellor Scholz.

"Olaf Scholz has done a real crook in the executive government and impressively demonstrated how unscrupulous the SPD's criticism of unscrupulous arms exports, especially against dictatorships and authoritarian regimes," she told the dpa.

"This is a heavy burden for the new traffic light government under Scholz."

che / dpa