After a weekend of rumors about her future, centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) defense minister Christine Lambrecht officially announced her resignation on Monday.
Lambrecht had been widely criticized for a New Year’s Day Instagram video she shot from the streets of Berlin, in which she attempted to relive her memories of the war in Ukraine, only to be nearly overwhelmed by the sound of fireworks going off all over the place. hair.
Opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU) members criticized the message as tone-deaf and urged her to stop. Lambrecht said in a statement Monday that the months-long media attention has focused on his personal life “Allow hardly any objective reporting and discussion about the military, the Bundeswehr and security policy decisions in the interest of the people of Germany.”
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Scholz: A replacement will be named soon
Lambrecht’s supporter to the end, chancellor Olaf Scholz, recently called her “first class” in December. Although it was too early to discuss it on Monday, Scholz claimed to have a “clear idea” of his intentions to succeed Lambrecht and would announce them as soon as possible.
He praised Lambrecht for her efforts to make improvements to one of Germany’s notoriously challenging ministries. To manage the significant reboot needed for national security and Ukraine, he stated, “worked with tremendous commitment to get away from the routes that have been taken for decades.”
A challenging year in defense
Lambrecht’s tenure began inauspiciously, even before the war in Ukraine. Military experts were skeptical of her experience, and her first year in government became a series of minor controversies. Lambrecht also strongly criticized the German government’s unwillingness to supply heavy weapons to Ukraine.
It didn’t help that she had taken her adult son on an official tour to a military unit in northern Germany aboard a German Armed Forces helicopter, then holidayed with him in Sylt. Perhaps more serious than family problems was the apparent loss of confidence in the armed forces, with revelations in the German media in recent weeks.
According to an insiderthe Ministry of Defense under the leadership of Lambrecht has fallen into a “deep sleep”. “What ultimately forced her to resign is the almost complete loss of power in the Defense Department.” Rafael Loss, a defense analyst with the European Council on foreign relations, said (ECFR). “I believe that implied that even if she had remained minister, it would have been a lost cause.”
Scholz hopes his new position will help stabilize the ministry. SPD leader Lars Klingbeil, former Labor Minister Hubertus Heil, and Eva Högl, the Bundeswehr’s special parliamentary army commissioner, are among the candidates put forward in the German media. In order to maintain the balance in the cabinet agreed during the coalition negotiations, there will almost certainly be a replacement for Scholz’s SPD. Scholz has also stated that he will maintain gender equality in his cabinet.
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Big job for the new person
The next minister has to get to work immediatelywhoever they may be. The first order of business will be preparation for one “Ukraine contact group” of NATO military ministers on Friday at the US Air Force station in Ramstein, West Germany.
Loss at ECFR believes Scholz could use the conference to reevaluate Germany’s approach to the globally criticized Ukraine. According to him, his resignation now gives Scholz the chance to change the perception of Germany’s support for Ukraine. “If he had any desire to show more leadership for the meeting at Ramstein Air Force Base, I think this resignation will allow him to paint a picture of how things will change.”
Regardless of who it is, the German defense minister will ultimately have little influence over the big choices made regarding the weapons deployed to Ukraine, but he will have many problems to deal with. According to the existing implementation, “NATO has already put a lot of pressure on the Bundeswehr”, stated loss.
“It will be difficult for the Bundeswehr to meet the operational demands that will increase dramatically in the coming years. The next defense minister will have to handle everything while maintaining the support of the military, like Christine Lambert apparently accomplished.”
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