EU chief diplomat warns: US protective shield may not always be open
Published: Friday, Feb 16th 2024, 11:30
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On the fringes of the Munich Security Conference, EU foreign affairs representative Josep Borrell spoke out in favor of a massive expansion of European deterrence and defense capabilities. We are very happy under the American umbrella, but the American umbrella may not always be open, warned the Spaniard on Friday morning in the Bavarian capital. We therefore need to open up our own umbrella. "In future, we may have to be more autonomous than we ever wanted to be," he added with a view to the possible re-election of Donald Trump in the US presidential elections in November.
Borrell left open whether he believes the European umbrella should also include a new system of nuclear deterrence. This topic has been the subject of much controversy in the EU in recent days after Trump made it clear during an election campaign appearance that he would not grant American support to allies with low defense spending in the event of a Russian attack.
The SPD's lead candidate for the European elections, Katarina Barley, among others, questioned the reliability of the US nuclear umbrella and said that EU nuclear bombs could also become an issue on the way to a European army.
German Finance Minister Christian Lindner spoke out in favor of more cooperation with France and the UK on nuclear deterrence. "French President Emmanuel Macron has made various offers of cooperation," wrote the FDP leader in a guest article for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. "We should see Donald Trump's latest statements as an invitation to continue thinking about this element of European security under the umbrella of NATO."
However, SPD government politicians such as Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and Chancellor Olaf Scholz have so far rejected nuclear talks with France. Pistorius described the current discussion as an overreaction to Trump's statements and said that a nuclear debate was "really the last thing we need at the moment".
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