Chancellor Olaf Scholz says Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine has fallen victim to the law of unintended consequences: uniting the western world, boosting Germany’s defence renewal efforts and catalysing Berlin’s pivot to a post-carbon industrial economy.
In an interview with the foreign media, Mr Scholz insisted Germany was delivering Ukraine all it could — financially and militarily — as part of his government’s “dramatic shift in foreign policy”.
“The war has seen things happen differently than Putin imagined,” said Mr Scholz, noting the determined Ukrainian pushback against Russian forces, united western support for Kyiv, and six far-reaching packages of EU sanctions against Russia. “Putin’s plan to conquer the whole country hasn’t worked out, now he is concentrating his murderous forces on eastern Ukraine.”
Six months after Mr Scholz took over from Angela Merkel, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) chancellor said Germany’s shift to supply arms to a war party — shattering a decades old policy — should not be underestimated.
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Amid ongoing criticism of his government’s efforts, led by Kyiv’s ambassador in Berlin Andrij Melnyk, Mr Scholz insisted that Germany and its alliance allies would never agree to anything that could lead to “a direct confrontation between Nato and Russia”.
“This is a very dramatic situation and we have supported Ukraine in a big way, including financially,” he said, noting a new €1 billion direct budget assistance transfer to Ukraine organised through Germany’s G7 presidency. “It is important that help reaches Ukraine while, at the same time, avoiding that it comes to a direct confrontation between Nato and Russia. It is important that we all move and act in a co-ordinated way.
On Germany’s exposure to Russian energy, Mr Scholz said his government began work last December analysing its dependency, particularly on Russian gas, and was now implementing “without delay” its shift to other energy sources.
From February to May, Germany reduced Russian gas imports from more than half of the total to about one-third.
“Germany is less dependent on Russia for energy than many other counties in the world,” said Mr Scholz. “Germany is also reducing its dependence on Russian gas at the greatest rate, more than many other technologically advanced industrial countries.”
At the next G7 meeting, hosted by Germany at the end of June in Bavaria, Mr Scholz said leaders would discuss the war-related problems — fears of a looming hunger crisis, spiking energy prices — as well as ongoing challenges such as climate change and ongoing pandemic aftershocks.
Mr Scholz dismissed as “overinterpreted” remarks by his finance minister, Christian Lindner, for “an unideological debate” about a German return to nuclear energy.
A decade-old agreement will mean Germany’s last nuclear plants leave the energy grid by the end of this year.
Despite rising energy prices and supply questions, Mr Scholz said a renaissance of nuclear energy in Germany was as unlikely as it was impractical, both financially and logistically.
“Per nuclear plant you would have to pay €12 billion-€18 billion to open one by 2027 while the [uranium] fuel rods would have to be imported from Russia,” he said. “As a government we have banked on a massive expansion of renewables.”
