Three senior German Bundestag officials will meet Ukrainian MPs in the war-torn west of the country, parliamentary sources said on Tuesday (April 12th), at a time when Chancellor Olaf Scholz is himself under pressure to travel to Ukraine.
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This is the first trip of German political representatives since the start of the Russian invasion. The trio is made up of the chairmen of the committees for Defense Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (Liberal), Foreign Affairs Michael Roth (SPD) and European Affairs Anton Hofreiter (Greens), from the three parties in the government coalition.
Meeting with Ukrainian representatives
“They are on their way to Ukraine“, indicated the entourages of the first two officials, without wanting to give more details on the place of the meeting”For safety reasons“. According to information from Der Spiegel, the three officials are to meet with representatives of the kyiv parliament in the west of the country, responding to an invitation from Ukrainian MPs.
“Ukraine must be in a position of strength and able to defend itself to negotiate with Russia”.
Michael Roth, Social Democrat Member of the Bundestag
The presidents of these key Bundestag committees have all three declared themselves in favor of delivering heavy weapons to kyiv, in particular tanks, while Olaf Scholz has shown himself to be more reserved. The German Minister of Foreign Affairs, the environmentalist Annalena Baerboock, has also called for deliveries of such weapons, without bending the chief executive so far.
be made “an idea of the situation there»
Annalena Baerbock’s request is “surely right“, estimated the social democrat Michael Roth in an interview with the radio Deutschlandfunk. “Ukraine must be in a position of strength and able to defend itself to negotiate with Russia“, he argued, calling for a quick decision within NATO for the delivery of heavy weapons.
After recent visits to kyiv by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen or British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, voices mostly from the conservative opposition have been raised in Germany asking Olaf Scholz to do the same. “I hope that our Chancellor will follow this example and get an idea of the situation there.“, declared in particular the conservative Roderich Kiesewetter, expert in foreign policy.
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More acerbic, the daily Bild was ironic this weekend about a trip by the Chancellor to northern Germany, for a regional election meeting, when “British Prime Minister Boris Johnson walked side by side with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky through Kyiv“.