Taurus: SPD politician Michael Roth calls on Ampel to pull himself together

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Michael Roth: “I don’t know who these gimmicks are supposed to benefit”

Photo: teutopress GmbH / teutopress / IMAGO

The debate about Taurus deliveries is met with incomprehension in the SPD.

"I am astonished that there is now a rhetorical competition among the advocates of greater military support for Ukraine that is making new pirouettes every week," said Michael Roth (SPD), head of the Foreign Affairs Committee, to SPIEGEL.

With regard to the Union's renewed proposal in the Bundestag to supply Ukraine with Taurus cruise missiles, Roth said: "I don't know who these shenanigans are supposed to benefit.

They don’t help Ukraine or us.”

Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) strictly rejects the Taurus delivery.

Several MPs from the FDP and the Greens criticized him sharply for this.

The FDP politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, who is also chairwoman of the Defense Committee in the Bundestag, has announced that she will approve the Union proposal like last time.

Communicatively “a lot was given away”

This annoys the Social Democrats Roth. "In February we passed a very strong traffic light motion on arms deliveries that goes well beyond what the coalition has been able to agree on so far." No red line has been drawn for Taurus cruise missiles - even if they are they were not explicitly mentioned.

»Unfortunately, this good proposal was completely lost because the question of naming a specific weapon system overshadowed everything.

Here we have wasted a lot in terms of communication, and parts of the coalition also bear responsibility for this.

The coalition now has to pull itself together, said Roth.

He himself would have liked the Chancellor to make a different decision.

»But playing the Union game now might help individuals in their bubble.

But it doesn’t help Ukraine at all.”

Roth speaks of a “completely heated debate that is damaging us in Europe.”

Right now, Ukraine depends on the unity of its supporters, said Roth, "especially when it comes to Germany and France."

The foreign politician doesn't spare his own party either: "The SPD sees itself as internationally and European-oriented," said Roth.

“But then we also have to take note of how critically some positions are sometimes viewed by our partners.”