DThe SPD insists that Germany’s refusal to supply Marder and Leopard tanks to Ukraine is in line with an informal understanding within NATO. The Parliamentary State Secretary in the Ministry of Defense, Siemtje Möller (SPD), said at the weekend that NATO had “commonly agreed” that such tanks should not be delivered; the “decision” is made jointly.
While the Union opposition rated this statement as “untenable” and the deputy Union faction leader Johann Wadephul spoke of “the next variant in a long chain of excuses”, the defense policy spokesman for the SPD in the Bundestag, Wolfgang Hellmich, tried on Thursday to help Möller without her to confirm the statement.
Hellmich reported on the position of NATO, which a spokesman for the alliance in Brussels emphasized again in view of the current German controversy, according to which the military support of NATO members for Ukraine is a national matter, which is why there are no joint decisions by the alliance on this issue .
Print from the Polish side
Hellmich now said that all military deliveries to Ukraine were made “independently” by the NATO countries. Nevertheless, there is an informal agreement between the partner states not to include Western armored personnel carriers and battle tanks in military aid. Two weeks ago, after the questioning of Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) in the Bundestag Defense Committee, Hellmich said that NATO agreed not to send western heavy battle tanks to Ukraine.
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In the meantime, the German government has also come under pressure from the Polish side because a planned exchange of rings is not going ahead. It had been considered that the Polish army could provide Ukraine with its own Soviet-designed battle tanks and receive German Leopard 2 battle tanks as replacements. Polish President Andrej Duda had expressed disappointment that this exchange was not getting off the ground, and the Polish Foreign Minister had spoken more cautiously in Berlin that the devil was in the details.
German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said on Wednesday that the federal government was “baffled” by Duda’s comments. It was correct that talks had been held about such a ring exchange. However, the Polish request was to be supplied with Leopard 2 A7 tanks; only 50 of this most modern variant are currently available in the Bundeswehr. In a similar ring exchange with the Czech army, the German side delivered an older Leopard variant, but the number of these was also limited.