Merz Pledges Ukraine Support in His First Chancellor's Speech
Germany and Europe will continue to support Ukraine in order to prevent Russia from completely destroying the peace and security order on the continent and in the world, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in his first government speech to the Bundestag.
The Gaze reports on this with reference to Ukrinform.
"The outcome of this war decides not only the fate of Ukraine, but also whether law and order will continue to prevail in Europe and the world or tyranny, military violence and the unconcealed right of the strong. Therefore, nothing less than the peaceful order of our entire continent is at stake," Merz said.
He reminded that on his third day in office, he visited Kyiv together with the leaders of France, Poland and the United Kingdom, where they stressed the need to achieve a just, lasting peace ‘better today than tomorrow’. To this end, Germany will continue to strongly support Ukraine," the politician said.
He stressed that Germany is not and will not be a party to the war, but stands by the side of Ukrainians.
Merz stressed the inadmissibility of peace under diktat, forcing Ukrainians to make peace using ‘military facts’. The politician assured that Europe is working to ensure that this is a clear position not only of Europeans, but also of American partners. Everyone agrees on the need to achieve a 30-day ceasefire without any conditions.
‘Such a ceasefire could open a window when peace talks would be possible at all,’ Merz said.
The German Chancellor also noted that helping Ukraine is a joint effort of the partners - Europe, the United States and others - in their own interests.
Anyone who believes that Russia will be satisfied with defeating Ukraine or annexing part of its territories is mistaken, Merz stressed. He urged to look at Russia's actions on the territory of European states: poisoning, assassinations, cyber attacks on infrastructure, physical destruction of data and submarine cables, possibly with the help of shadow fleet vessels, espionage, sabotage, systematic disinformation, etc. The authorities and their henchmen are behind all of this, the head of the German government stressed.
‘We will oppose all these attempts to split and destabilise Europe and democracy with determination and unity, including by raising our combat readiness,’ Merz promised.
According to him, in this historic, decisive situation, Europe must be more united than ever. The Prime Minister promised a ‘new reliability’ to the EU and NATO partners.
‘The days of Germany abstaining from important European policy issues are over,’ the new chancellor said.
He touched upon the need to build up the army and increase combat readiness and deterrence capabilities.
‘Our goal - for Germany and Europe - is to be so strong that our weapons will never be used... The lessons of history teach us that strength deter aggression, weakness encourages aggression,’ Merz said.
He promised that the government will create all the necessary conditions for the Bundeswehr to become the strongest army in Europe.
‘This is what our partners expect from us,’ the Chancellor stressed.
Friedrich Merz was elected Chancellor of Germany on 6 May.
As The Gaze reported earlier, Merz says the European Union is ready to impose tougher sanctions on Russia if no progress is made this week in ending the war in Ukraine.