Herr Vogel, politicians from the Greens and FDP have recently criticized the chancellor more and more openly.

There were also many critical contributions from delegates at the federal party conference of the FDP today.

The party chairman, Christian Lindner, and you, his deputy, didn't say a word about this debate.

How bad is the mood in the coalition?

Leonie Feuerbach

Editor in Politics.

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I would be worried about the Free Democrats if every conceivable position and voice weren't present at a federal party convention.

This is appropriate for a liberal intra-party discussion culture.

Apart from that: I think that the matter is important and we need to intensify and speed up arms deliveries to Ukraine.

That's what Ukraine needs for this second phase of the war, and that includes heavy weapons, because Ukraine must not lose this war.

The goal must be that the area occupied by Russian troops can be minimized by the Ukrainians as quickly as possible and thus the possibility of Russian troops committing war crimes there.

And arms deliveries contribute to this.

They demand the delivery of heavy weapons, as does a current party congress motion.

Is that a distancing from the Federal Chancellor, who doesn't want that?

That's not how I understood the Chancellor.

It is crucial that arms come to Ukraine.

And we also formulate two conditions in the application.

Firstly, Germany must not become a party to the war - according to international law, it does not do that with arms deliveries - and secondly, our obligations to our own security and that of NATO must not be jeopardized.

Deliveries from Bundeswehr stocks were already being made in the first phase of the war.

The Bundeswehr says this is reaching its limits.

But there are other ways: for example, to give Ukraine the financial means to buy weapons.

That needs to be approved as soon as possible.

And you can do a so-called ring exchange, like now with Slovenia, which supplies main battle tanks to Ukraine, which the soldiers there are familiar with,

and received armored personnel carriers and wheeled tanks of western design from Germany.

For example, heavy artillery and heavy tanks are coming to Ukraine as a result of German action.

This is crucial.

The FDP is calling for an energy embargo as soon as possible, meaning: as soon as we can afford it.

The Young Liberals and some delegates say: The embargo really has to come as soon as possible, even if it hurts.

What is your opinion?

I think it's right that the federal government's goal is to become energy independent of Russia as quickly as possible.

I have no doubt that the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, Robert Habeck, shares and is pursuing this goal of achieving independence as quickly as possible.

But he too says that it doesn't make sense to weaken yourself more than Putin.

Therefore, as soon as possible does not mean immediately.

This is also due to how oblivious to the future and how little long-term the policy of the previous government was.

The dependency on Russian energy has even increased considerably.

It was a course that did not raise enough awareness, considered the world situation and the nature of Vladimir Putin.

We have to do that now.

The FDP wants to discuss the increased use of domestic and European oil and gas deposits and longer service lives for coal and nuclear power plants.

Will there be a dispute in the coalition?