German government faces growing domestic pressure over reducing support for Ukraine - NYT
Due to domestic pressure, the German government is pushing harder for talks to try to end the war with Russia.
According to Censor.NET, The New York Times reports.
However, Chancellor Olaf Scholz emphasises that Germany will not reduce its assistance to Ukraine. Speaking in Moldova on 22 August, he said that "Germany will not stop supporting Ukraine" "as long as necessary" and will remain, in his words, "the biggest supporter of Ukraine in Europe".
However, in Germany itself, the Scholz government is losing popularity, and in September, crucial elections will be held in which both left and right parties are expected to succeed in calling for an end to military aid to Kyiv.
The main burden for the government, which could slow down important fiscal decisions, is the constitutional requirement to keep new fiscal debt at no more than 0.35% of GDP. But the government also faces a possible complication if the Prosecutor General accuses any Ukrainian officials of responsibility for the undermining of three of the four Nord Stream gas pipelines between Russia and Germany in 2022.
German criticism of the Polish authorities' "insufficient assistance in the investigation" was met with harsh words from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who suggested that "the initiators and patrons of Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 should apologise and shut up".
But the tensions between Germany and Ukraine are more specifically related to the 2025 budget. Finance Minister Christian Lindner wants to avoid raising taxes and cut the budget, which by law must be close to balanced.
This restriction puts pressure not only on the government's aid to Ukraine, but also on Scholz's promise, made immediately after the war began two and a half years ago, that Germany would dramatically increase its military spending.
Since then, Germany's military spending increases have been covered mainly by a €100 billion special fund outside the regular budget, which is expected to run out by 2027. Lindner insists that the government should no longer take out extra-budgetary loans for special projects, including increased military spending.
Just last Friday, the coalition agreed to reduce the 2025 budget deficit target from €17 billion to €12 billion, after initial proposals failed.
As reported by the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, as part of this agreement, Lindner proposed to freeze new military aid to Ukraine until the budgetary needs are fully funded.
Last month, the government decided to cut funding to Ukraine for 2025 from €7.5bn to €4bn, arguing that the shortfall would be covered by expected proceeds from frozen Russian assets in Europe under a plan agreed by the G7 at their June summit in Italy.
The G7 has agreed to provide a $50 billion loan to Ukraine, using frozen Russian assets as collateral. Together with funds provided by individual countries, Mr Scholz said, this would be more than what has been available to Ukraine in terms of support to date.
Since the full-scale invasion in 2022, Germany has been Europe's largest supporter of Ukraine's fight against Russian aggression. During this time, Berlin has provided more than €14 billion in support, mostly military.
