As German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius visited Lithuania to prepare for the permanent deployment of a Bundeswehr brigade to the Baltic state, he told DW that a strong transatlantic partnership between Europe and the US remains fundamental for both parties. But, as the US under Trump continues to shift its focus to the Indo-Pacific, Europe needs to become more self-reliant.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00What exactly can Europeans do to become less dependent on U.S. protection and
00:05what's going to happen to allied support for Ukraine? These are topics that are
00:10high up on the agenda amongst allies here in Europe in the first week of
00:14Donald Trump's second term as U.S. president and Germany's Defense Minister
00:20Boris Pistorius has traveled to Lithuania for talks and is also going to
00:24travel to Poland and to France. Thanks very much for joining us. So your visit
00:30here to Lithuania in this first week of Donald Trump's second term. How much are
00:35you also sending a sign to Donald Trump? Look you may not think that we're
00:39spending enough on defense but we are active. Is this the new German strategy?
00:43It is German strategy but it's not a new one. Since I've came in an office in
00:49January 23 I tried to make quite clear every day that we should not look only
00:57to the White House and who's going to be the next president but to do our own
01:02homework. I mean one thing is quite clear. NATO is the backbone, the one backbone
01:08of European security, Europe's security. And for that it's in our, it's both in
01:15our interest and in our responsibility as Europeans to resolutely strengthen
01:20this backbone with capabilities, with forces, with ideas and leadership and
01:25money of course. So what we are talking about is to underline every day that we
01:30have a responsibility and we have a bigger responsibility for Europe's
01:34security than ever before regardless what the agenda is of Donald Trump and
01:40the White House and the new administration. We have to take more
01:43responsibility and one part of doing that is my decision from summer 23 to
01:49deploy permanently a brigade to Lithuania and this is already my seventh
01:53visit here in Lithuania. No other country I have been visited more and I'm here to
01:59show that we are on track that the roadmap will be fulfilled in the time we
02:06agreed upon for 2027, the end of 2027 we will be here with a brigade
02:14condition based on the infrastructure which will be provided. So some 5,000
02:20troops will be here in Lithuania. Have you had a chance to tell your
02:24counterparts in the US in Washington about these plans or are you having to
02:29build up new contacts from scratch now? I was in a very close contact with Lloyd
02:34Austin during all the time but I haven't met yet the new one because he
02:40is not yet confirmed. I reached out for a visit in the first week of
02:46February what we see whether it will will fit or not for him and then I will
02:51try of course to explain once more what we are doing and that two-third of NATO
02:55partners in Europe, no of all NATO partners reached a 2% pledge that we
03:00initiated a new initiatives to close capability gaps for example by
03:07initiatives like ESEA or ELSA. I initiated last year in November the
03:12group of five meeting which is quite new because we wanted to stick together
03:17the five of us which the highest spending spendings for defense. So that's
03:23the defense ministers of Italy, France, Poland and the UK so not just a European
03:27Union project. No it's really a project of the biggest European NATO members
03:34NATO and NATO allies in Europe not in the European Union and we have already
03:38had already three meetings the forces to come in I think in two weeks and we have
03:44a quite clear agenda we are talking in the first place about how we can improve
03:48our support for Ukraine for example by improving more joint ventured with a
03:54Ukrainian industry to to give the Ukrainian government the possibility to
03:58invest more in their own industry and to use the free capacities of the industry
04:03the defense industry by spending the money we give them and by implementing
04:08more joint ventures for example when it comes to drones or AI or armored
04:14vehicles or ammunition. As a second second point of our agenda in the group
04:19of five is to show our willingness and our capability to enforce our
04:27responsibility and our leadership in Europe as a five biggest nations to to
04:32take over more responsibility and to show quite clear we knew and we and we
04:37know and we have been knowing all the time I've talked about that already in
04:40summer 23 when I was in India that we need to take more responsibility in
04:45Europe because any new American administration will shift its focus more
04:53to the Indo-Pacific because they have to take the responsibility there and they
04:57will try to do everything to to to stabilize the region over there because
05:03this is in our interest as well but like we can't expect the Americans to do more
05:08in the Indo-Pacific for the sake of our all prosperity and security and at the
05:13same time to do the same like they have that they used to do in the past in
05:18Europe so we have to jump in that gap and this is our task. But how worried are
05:24you minister about the future of NATO? I'm not really worried about the future
05:29of NATO because I know from all my my talks I had in the United States or on
05:34the Munich Security Conference that the majority of the Americans know quite
05:39well what they do have in the tradition of Euro-Transatlantic partnership they
05:46know that we are not that we are sitting on the same page that we have the same
05:52interests in very very many fields and that is our responsibility to do to make
05:58possible that NATO and the Euro-Transatlantic partnership can that we can
06:02all together can turn on another page of our history of our joint history this is
06:08what we have to achieve now. Do you think US troops would secure a truce in Ukraine
06:16if Donald Trump actually managed to fulfill his promise and bring parties to
06:21the negotiating table or would Germany take on a leadership role and send
06:26soldiers to secure that truce? In the first place we have to talk about a
06:31ceasefire and then a sustainable peace for Ukraine and this means Ukraine needs
06:37security guarantees by all the other countries otherwise it would take only a
06:42couple of years maybe until Russia attacks again so this is the issue we
06:47have to we have to face in the in the months and years to come and to be
06:52honest I'm not so fond of the idea to discuss publicly on the marketplaces or
06:57in the media what is our strategy for any negotiations on the past to a peace
07:03ceasefire or even beyond this is not nothing we should discuss publicly
07:08because otherwise I could send an email to Vladimir Putin to tell him what we
07:12are planning. There's not much time for your government left elections in
07:16Germany are on the 23rd of February so we are talking about sending potentially
07:23another military aid package to Ukraine worth three billion euros is Ukraine
07:29going to get that money? I hope so. This is also something where some people are
07:38criticizing that support for Ukraine has become a political football essentially
07:42in the election campaign President Zelensky made remarks at in Davos just
07:48this week is it okay to politicize this issue? I think it is not a football in
07:53the game of election in Germany it's a discussion about how to finance that
08:00package. I constructed the package together with my ministry but it's not
08:06on me to make proposals how to finance it and I think by the way the suggestive
08:12proposal of the Chancellor is the best way to finance it because it's the most
08:16transparent way and the most just way because we explain with that way that we
08:22finance that package by taking new credits instead of taking money out of
08:27other parts of the budget for example for social for social things social
08:32politics and this is quite I think honest to do so and not to leave the
08:37people uncertain about how is that finance being financed in three or four
08:42months when the election campaign is over. Are you aware of the big mountain
08:47that your party has to climb as well when it comes to the criticism from the
08:53Trump world if you remember this scene where the then Foreign Minister Heiko
08:58Maas from your party the Social Democrats was filmed sniggering at
09:03Donald Trump making the comments about Germany being too dependent on Russian
09:07gas many people are requesting the Social Democrats now to give an apology
09:12to Donald Trump's camp does your party own apology to Trump? I don't think so I
09:18mean that the time has changed a lot everybody almost everybody in Europe and
09:23beyond woke up in a new world with it was the 24th of February I prefer not to
09:29have not to look always into the rear mirror instead of looking forward I mean
09:35we have tons of problems and challenges to solve we should focus on that and not
09:41on what anybody told a couple of years ago. President Zelensky also in Davos
09:46said that Europe has to do a lot more now to keep the US interested you hinted
09:52at that at the beginning of our interview what exactly does Europe need
09:57to do to keep the US interested because there simply is no ocean that's
10:02separating Europe from Russia? Well you see Europe is a continent with the
10:09European Union has 450 million inhabitants it's one of the strongest
10:14and most important markets in the world still we have had a partnership with the
10:19US for decades and in Germany in Europe everybody wants to proceed with that
10:25because we have made a lots of very good experience and I think on the other side
10:30in the United States they do know it's the same for them and for example if we
10:35try to get a balance in the trade balance and we find a solution for more
10:42cooperating in defense industry issues in showing in an authentic way that we
10:49take more responsibility regardless the agenda of Donald Trump and the White
10:54House then I think we have a good chance to stay together to remain a real
11:01reliable partnership and this is what we need evermore. Boris Pistorius, thank you so much.