A senior German MP from the "Greens/Alliance 90" party has accused Chancellor Olaf Scholz of blocking a military aid package for Ukraine, despite the ongoing bloody fight against the Russian invasion, BTA reports.
The chairman of the Bundestag's parliamentary committee on European affairs, Anton Hofreiter, said that Scholz's chancellorship had withheld the large amount of aid, despite the insistence of some ministers.
He added that the aid proposal "was not submitted to the Ministry of Finance and did not reach the budget committee."
According to inside sources, Hofreiter confirmed suspicions that the chancellor himself had blocked the aid.
Last week, Der Spiegel reported that Foreign Minister Analene Berbock and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius had insisted on the allocation of around 3 billion. euros for weapons for Ukraine, before the upcoming Bundestag elections.
According to the publication, however, the chancellery has stopped all discussions on additional military aid because Scholz does not want to make a decision that would tie the hands of the next government.
Contrary to the accusations, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius denied that the chancellor had blocked the aid. "There is no blocking."
In the Defense Ministry, we have prepared a new aid package for Ukraine. The decision must now be made at the political level. I expect this to happen as soon as all the questions have been clarified," Pistorius said in an interview with "Tagesspiegel".
Despite the disagreements, the "Greens/Alliance 90" is trying to distance himself from Scholz's political line, leading to new tensions in the country's election campaign.