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Bundestag: Friedrich Merz attacks Olaf Scholz in a general debate

2022-06-01T15:02:55.307Z


Union parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz settled in the Bundestag with the Ukraine policy of the federal government. And the Chancellor countered. Scenes of the speech duel in the video.


AreaRead the video transcript expand here

Friedrich Merz, CDU parliamentary group leader


"What are you hiding from us, Chancellor?"

Olaf Scholz, Federal Chancellor


»Dear Mr. Merz, you have put a lot of effort into the text that you have prepared for your manuscript.«

Friedrich Merz, CDU parliamentary group leader


“It's not just my question or ours either.

Is there now a second agenda?”

Olaf Scholz, Federal Chancellor


»What you have presented here are nothing but questions.

They danced through the whole thing and really didn't say anything specific.

More beef would have been very sensible indeed.'

Almost 100 days after the Russian attack on Ukraine and Olaf Scholz's subsequent "turning point" speech, Union faction leader Friedrich Merz appointed the chancellor to the Bundestag - and he hit back verbally.

First topic: heavy weapons for Ukraine.

Friedrich Merz, CDU parliamentary group leader


»More than a month after this joint resolution in the German Bundestag, the promised weapons have not been delivered to Ukraine to this day.

More than a month.«

Olaf Scholz, Federal Chancellor


»In the coming weeks, we will deliver twelve of the most modern self-propelled howitzers in the world to the Ukraine in close cooperation with the Dutch.

The training of the Ukrainian soldiers on it will be completed in a few days.

And they are really very modern weapons, very heavy weapons.

Apart from the fact that shooting down planes with anti-aircraft missiles is also a difficult process, what should other heavy weapons be than, for example, the cheetah or the self-propelled howitzer?

It's just idle stuff you're saying.

In the coming weeks we will also deliver more weapons.

For example, the federal government has recently decided that we will deliver the most modern air defense system that Germany has with the Iris-t system.

By doing so, we will enable Ukraine to

to protect an entire city from air raids.

That, too, is a decision made by this federal government.«

Next point of criticism from Merz: The Chancellor and the SPD may have a second agenda in Ukraine policy.

Friedrich Merz, CDU parliamentary group leader


»What are you hiding from us, Chancellor?

You phone the Russian President for 80 minutes, and tomorrow the Speaker of the Parliament of Ukraine is coming to Germany, to Berlin, and you are refusing to give him an appointment until this minute.

Why doesn't anyone from your SPD ranks contradict your predecessor in the office of mayor of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Klaus von Dohnanyi, who is going from one talk show to the next through Berlin these days, defending Russia, defending Putin and almost exclusively the Blaming the United States of America for this war.

Chancellor, what are you doing there?”

Merz also accused Scholz of remaining unclear about the goals in the Ukraine war.

Russia must be pushed back beyond the February 24 contact line.

Scholz countered.

Olaf Scholz, Federal Chancellor


“It is arrogant and inappropriate and completely out of place when there is a discussion in this country about what the Ukrainians should rightly decide.

I'll say it with the American President: the Ukrainians decide on Ukraine.

And no one else, Mr. Merz.«

And in the general debate in the Bundestag, Friedrich Merz also demonstratively sought in vain for the "turning point" proclaimed by the chancellor.

Friedrich Merz, CDU parliamentary group leader


"There is nothing that you associate with this word, apart from new debts."

And Scholz had a counter for that, too. Better equipment for the Bundeswehr will - and must - come.

Olaf Scholz, Federal Chancellor


»What we can achieve here is a quantum leap.

And it also has a consequence.

The Bundeswehr will then probably be the largest conventional army in the European NATO system.

The omissions of the CDU and CSU defense ministers and the head of government there over the last 16 years are now being processed and made up for.”

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2022-06-01

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