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Annalena Bärbock
Photo: ODD ANDERSEN / AFP
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has expressed reservations about French President Emmanuel Macron's proposal for a joint European nuclear deterrent.
The federal government has set the course for new procurements in the context of nuclear sharing together with the USA, said the Green politician on Monday after a meeting with her Philippine counterpart Enrique Manalo in Berlin.
This will now also be promoted in the budget negotiations, she added.
It is a “big picture that we are discussing intensively with our partners and of course also with the French”.
Germany has been involved in NATO's nuclear deterrent for decades with its own fighter jets.
They are stationed at the Büchel Air Base in the Rhineland-Palatinate Eifel region in order to deploy US nuclear bombs stored there in an emergency.
This is called nuclear sharing.
The Tornado fighter jets currently planned for this purpose are to be replaced by modern US-type F-35 stealth jets.
It is one of the largest armament projects of the Bundeswehr.
In view of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, which has been going on for almost a year, Baerbock pointed out that the federal government is working intensively on strengthening joint defense within the framework of NATO and the European Union.
NATO's strategic concept and the EU's foreign and security policy guidelines have been reformulated.
Germany is working on a national security strategy, Baerbock recalled.
Macron offered Germany and other EU partners renewed talks on nuclear deterrence in the EU at the security conference in Munich on Friday.
The Russian aggression is a reminder of the important role nuclear weapons have and must continue to have in the European Union.
Macron had already made a corresponding offer in early 2020.
At the time, European partners like Germany reacted cautiously.
France has been the EU's only remaining nuclear power since Britain left in 2020.
Macron has long been demanding that Europe should make itself more independent of the superpower USA.
mfh/dpa
