FDP politicians were also sharply critical of Scholz’s demand.
“[Scholz] now wants to blackmail the Bundestag for €3 billion by threatening that Ukraine will otherwise go away empty-handed,” Marco Buschmann, the FDP’s general secretary, wrote on X.
Even members of the Greens, who generally favor taking on more debt, sharply criticized Scholz, accusing him of merely wanting to block Ukraine aid ahead of the election.
“Apparently, the chancellery has been feverishly searching for a way that does NOT have a majority in the Bundestag,” Greens parliamentarian Sebastian Schäfer, who sits on the budget committee, wrote on X.
Scholz has sought to walk an awkward line on Ukraine aid, trumpeting the fact that Germany is Ukraine’s second-biggest provider of military aid after the United States, while also depicting himself as a “peace chancellor,” a leader who knows how to keep the war from spiraling out of control.
Earlier this month, German media outlet Spiegel reported that Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock of the Greens and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius from Scholz’s own Social Democratic Party were pushing for the €3 billion aid package, but that Scholz was blocking the proposal.
Scholz’s SPD is now polling in third place at around 16 percent, while the conservatives, led by chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz, are in first at 31 percent.
If the conservatives win the election, as seems likely, they may well end up governing with the SPD, an eventuality that would mean both parties would have to reconcile their differences on spending and Ukraine aid.
