Faster help to Ukraine
Kubicki criticizes the SPD’s “permanent sleep”.
4/23/2022, 1:27 p.m
The SPD does not present a satisfactory image in the eyes of the world public, FDP deputy Wolfgang Kubicki criticizes at the federal party conference and urges more haste in view of the Ukraine war. In addition to another rebuke to energy policy, he meanwhile praises his own party’s Corona course.
The deputy federal chairman of the FDP, Wolfgang Kubicki, has sharply criticized the SPD for its attitude towards the war in Ukraine. “The image that many representatives of the largest governing party are presenting in front of the world public is not one that can satisfy us as a coalition partner,” he said in his opening speech at the FDP party conference in Berlin.
“We simply don’t have time to deal with the ideological baggage of the past,” added Kubicki. “Concrete and effective military aid is needed for Ukraine. And some say that the will to lead is also lacking at the moment.” “Many of our partners and not least the representatives of Ukraine” asked themselves whether Germany was “really doing everything” that was within its means, said Kubicki. “Or are our options really as limited as our actions suggest?”
More haste required
Overall, Germany has “leaned back for too long” and remained in a “twilight sleep,” said Kubicki. The Russian war of aggression in Ukraine was a “reality shock” that also had to be “mentally processed”. Nevertheless, hurry is required. “The dying, the kidnapping, the burning, the inhuman activities of the Russian troops in Ukraine must come to an end quickly.” Kubicki added: “We have to do everything we can to force Moscow to stop the war and the countless violations of the law.”
With regard to energy policy, he said: “We have to realize that the politically desired abandonment of nuclear energy and coal-fired power has created new problems.” The idea of ”forming the backbone of the energy transition, primarily with cheap Russian gas, has brought us into a fatal dependency.” If this dependency is to be ended and at the same time energy is to remain affordable, answers should not be sought “in the ideological past” but “in current pragmatism”.
Praise to own party
Kubicki also separated the FDP from the coalition partners SPD and Greens on other issues. “Our economic strength is the basis for our socio-political possibilities, not the other way around. It is an essential task of the Free Democrats to keep reminding our coalition partners of this,” he said.
Kubicki also praised the extensive lifting of the corona containment measures a few weeks ago, which was largely driven by the FDP. Here the party has shown “that it takes its political responsibility very seriously”. The recent fall in the number of infections “shows very clearly that we were right”. The FDP will continue to fight “that state encroachments should have no place in our free order”.