Editorial of the “World”. His first weeks at the head of Germany had arived a question that had even become a hashtag on social networks: “Where is Olaf Scholz?” Despite the increasingly threatening attitude of Russia, the new German Chancellor , in power since December 8, 2021, refused to say clearly what fate it would be reserved for the North Stream 2 gas pipeline in the event of an attack of Ukraine and opposed an end to non-receipt to Kiev’s insistient requests for deliveries. weapons. To the point that doubt had settled, in some European capitals and until Washington, on the “reliability” of Germany vis-à-vis its allies.
This doubt no longer exists. Tuesday, February 22, less than twenty-four hours after the recognition of the separatist republics of eastern Ukraine by Vladimir Putin, Olaf Scholz announced the stopping from North Stream 2. Saturday, February 26, two days later The beginning of the Russian offensive, he gave his green light to weapons deliveries to Ukraine. And the next day, in front of the Bundestag, he held a historical speech in which he announced that Germany would increase its military spending to more than 2% of its GDP (against 1.5% today), beyond the minimum set by NATO.
The scope of these decisions is considerable. In a few days, Germany came out of the comfort zone where it occurred since the end of the Second World War: that of an economic giant lined with a geopolitical dwarf. “It is clear that we need to invest a lot more in the security of our country,” said Olaf Scholz on Sunday in front of the Bundestag. “Today, Germany is breaking with a particular form of detention in foreign and security policy. If the world changes, our policy too must change,” said his minister of Foreign Affairs, Annalya Baerbock.
assumes its responsibility
You must greet this turning point. As one had to rejoice in the decision by Angela Merkel, at the beginning of the Pandemic of Covid-19, to sacrifice the German taboo of the common debt and to make the choice of European solidarity by weighing, alongside France, for the adoption of the July 2020 stimulus plan.
We can regret that, in both cases, Germany has long been slow to skip the footsteps. But the bottom line is that at a decisive moment it is at the rendezvous of history. She is today, as she has been in 2020, assuming the responsibility of her rank of the continent’s first economic power but also all the weight of his story.
From this point of view, those who, like Jean-Luc Mélenchon, worried since Sunday the dangers of a “rearmament” of Germany are mistaken heavily. The turn engaged by Berlin is not a nationalist turning point but a European turning point. “The challenge is to strengthen the sovereignty of the European Union. For Germany and for other EU countries, it means not just wondering what can be obtained for its own country in Brussels, but wondering what is best for the Union, “said Olaf Scholz.
Germany has often been reproached in recent years and especially in France, to behave like a “Grande Swiss”, indifferent to the geopolitical crackers of this beginning of XXI e century . She breaks today with this coldness. We must welcome it.