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Adopting national budgets is one of the important rights of parliaments in democracies.
And especially in the USA, it is a lever for MPs to force the government to follow Parliament on content-related issues.
This is particularly evident in the negotiations on the American defense budget.
In the present bipartisan draft law, the MPs have placed an inspection order for the Trump administration to first examine the possible consequences of a US troop withdrawal before the withdrawal may take place.
The timeframe makes it clear what it's actually about: to postpone the withdrawal until it no longer falls within Donald Trump's term of office.
He should not be allowed to create any more facts before leaving the White House.
This means that the US troop withdrawal, which Trump intended as a punitive action against Germany, will never take place, after all, Trump's successor, Joe Biden, considers it an exceptionally bad idea.
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During the Trump years, foreign and security policy was one of the few fields in which Republican MPs sometimes contradicted the president and where a non-partisan consensus could be established in an otherwise highly polarized political landscape.
When it comes to the issue of the US troop withdrawal, the federal government benefits.
But not on another issue: the non-partisan draft also provides for tightening sanctions against companies that participate in the Russian-German gas pipeline project Nord Stream 2.
We were not informed of any "concrete measures to reduce troops"
Heiko Maas was pleased about the plans of the US Congress to stop the announced troop withdrawal from Germany for the time being.
However, “neither concrete measures nor concrete timetables for troop reduction” were communicated, according to Maas.
Source: WORLD
The strong opposition to this geostrategically questionable project also represents a non-partisan consensus among security politicians in the USA. And that marks the first predetermined breaking point in the relationship between Chancellor Angela Merkel and the new US President Joe Biden.
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In any case, one thing should be clear: the heavy criticism of Nord Stream 2 was not just a strange quirk from Trump.
In fact, democratic security politicians also have a problem with Germany's carelessness and naivete on geostrategic issues.
In any case, it is hard to understand why, at a moment when Russia is waging war in Eastern Europe and is again posing a serious threat to the rest of Europe, the German government is pursuing a project that gives Moscow more potential for blackmail against Europe.
The US troop withdrawal may have been averted yet again, but even under Biden the probing questions regarding Nord Stream 2 will remain.
And Germany has to attribute that to itself.
"Nord Stream 2 is not crucial for Europe's energy supply"
"Nord Stream 2 is not really crucial for Europe's energy supply," said the ex-Union parliamentary group leader and applicant for CDU chairmanship, Friedrich Merz.
In the WELT interview, Merz also commented on the corona crisis management.
Source: WORLD / Felicia Pochhammer