The Chancellor candidate of the Union parties, Armin Laschet, wants to set up the body of a National Security Council in the Federal Chancellery, which should strengthen Germany's foreign policy strategic capabilities.

In a foreign policy lecture at the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Laschet said that the existing Federal Security Council - a body of all ministries dealing with foreign affairs and primarily concerned with arms exports - should be transferred to this new form of organization.

Johannes Leithäuser

Political correspondent in Berlin.

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    It should be structured across departments and include the federal states;

    In the first and third year of each legislative period, the Federal Government should then submit a “national security strategy” based on the findings of the National Security Council, which the Bundestag should debate and decide.

    The European Union must develop a new foreign policy cohesion, said Laschet and acknowledged the Franco-German role of a core European engine.

    However, all Franco-German initiatives must remain open to the participation of other European countries.

    He called for European joint projects to strengthen “Europe's military capabilities” and said that it would then be necessary “to have a structure in which these capabilities can be used”.

    Laschet is committed to NATO's military spending target

    With regard to Germany's defense capabilities, Laschet said that the goal Germany had promised in NATO to increase military spending to two percent of economic power in the middle of the decade must continue to apply. With a defense budget of this magnitude, the Federal Republic is "only able to be defended in the first place". With a view to differing statements from his chancellor candidate competitors Annalena Baerbock (Greens) and Olaf Scholz (SPD), Laschet said that reliability on this issue is also part of being able to be chancellor.

    Laschet said that in future Germany must be “willing to shape international politics”. The world is experiencing a "change of epoch". It is characterized by the dynamism of Asia and the rise of China, by the importance of new technologies, the disregard for international rules by authoritarian regimes and the populist tendencies in democracies. He also counted the various consequences of the corona pandemic and the consequences of climate change among the determining factors.