It's Wednesday afternoon, Olaf Scholz has already answered a number of questions.

This is not the first time that the Federal Chancellor has been questioned by the members of the Bundestag.

But today it fits particularly well.

The night before, the news leaked out that Berlin not only wants to allow other countries to export Leopard 2 tanks to the Ukrainians, but also wants to make such battle tanks available from its own stocks.

Shortly before the performance, the federal government officially confirmed the project.

Now Olaf Scholz can explain the matter to the elected representatives of the people before the planned evening television interview.

MPs appreciate this order.

Eckhart Lohse

Head of the parliamentary editorial office in Berlin.

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But the exciting thing about the one and a quarter hour question and answer session is not what Scholz has to say about the leopards.

The press release already said that Berlin and its partners would provide two battalions with German-made tanks and that Germany would “in a first step” provide a company with 14 Leopard 2-A6s from Bundeswehr stocks .

There you can also read that this should happen “quickly”.

The Chancellor did not specify this time in Parliament.

The close cooperation with the partners has also been pointed out in writing before Scholz repeatedly emphasizes it in the survey.

As expected, he does not provide details of when and with whom what was agreed.

No, something else is more exciting this afternoon.

It's what Scholz says about the things he won't do.

First, he reacts with a pinch of humor to accusations from the AfD and makes it clear that after the tank decision there will be no next delivery of western aircraft.

"If you see something there, tell me," the chancellor countered with AfD foreign policy expert Petr Bystron.

Scholz: "There will definitely be no ground troops."

Shortly thereafter, Scholz goes into more detail about the steps that should not be taken after the decision on main battle tanks.

Non-attached MP Robert Farle, a former AfD man, had asked him whether planes or even ground troops would be sent soon.

At some point it has to be "over".

Scholz does not brush Farle off, as he also masters it.

Rather, he speaks of concerns that made many citizens.

He advertises that they should trust the government.

He opposed it as early as the early phase of Russia's war against Ukraine about a no-fly zone.

One will not be “impressed by gossip” now either.

Then the Chancellor says: "There will be no ground troops."

He often makes it clear that he thinks the public debate about Germany's military aid to Ukraine is overheated.

He sees how quickly big decisions that required a long start-up are checked off and taken for granted.

It was less than three weeks ago that Germany, America and France announced the delivery of Western armored personnel carriers to Ukraine.

There is no longer any mention of this in the public debate.   

Hours before Scholz appears in the Bundestag, even before the federal government's press release on the planned tank deliveries has been sent out at 11:33 a.m., the Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister and former Ambassador in Berlin, Andriy Melnyk, continues the debate again.

Already at the weekend he had brought western combat aircraft into play, which would also be needed.

On Wednesday he told the broadcasters RTL and ntv that his country needed warships and submarines to protect its coast.

But not even the most combative supporter of German arms aid for the Ukrainians, the FDP deputy and chairwoman of the Defense Committee in the Bundestag, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, agrees with him.

"I don't see that with the planes," she says on RTL and ntv.

After all, this is associated with completely different risks than the delivery of tanks.

“If a tank is not being operated properly under certain circumstances, then it will stop.

It falls down on an airplane.” Obtaining air superiority is “unlikely”.

In the Bundestag, Strack-Zimmermann is then unusually united with Scholz and speaks of “good news” with regard to the leopards.

How well the SPD is aware of people's fears becomes clear as early as Wednesday morning.

Katja Mast, the parliamentary director of the Social Democratic parliamentary group, supports the move to the delivery of battle tanks in her regular press conference.

Not a word of criticism.

But she also reports from her constituency, from conversations and letters.

For example, from a couple whose wedding she was at and who have now written to her and expressed concerns about the course of the federal government in supporting Ukraine with weapons.

"I get more concerned expressions," says Mast.