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German Chancellor Friedrich Merz addressed the situation between Ukraine and Russia, along with relationships between Germany, US and Israel, starting off by saying: “We stand on the side of Ukrainian people without any ifs or buts.”
Merz continued: “We will never accept how a criminal Russian regime systematically wages war against the civilian population of this country, against old people, against women and against children.
“The whole thing garnished with an almost unbearable Nazi propaganda against the Ukrainian people, a people that suffered under German and under Russian tyranny like hardly a second on earth – this will always meet with our determined contradiction.”
Merz said that: “History teaches us one thing – appeasement does not create peace – it only encourages the aggressor in the first place. Whoever follows a naive pacifism today, promotes the war of tomorrow.
“We no longer live in the old system, but also not yet completely in a new one – we, in this part of Europe, are not at war, but we are also no longer at peace – the threat to our freedom is palpable.”
Addressing relationships with the US, Merz said: “For all the political tensions we have, for all the political tensions we are currently experiencing with the United States of America, the Americans, that is at least my feeling, they are our friends, and they should remain our friends.
“That is why we don’t give up this friendship lightly and we will always fight for it to stay, but it’s also true, the US itself is increasingly losing interest in the role of a guarantor power for the international order and its interests in its role as a reliable trendsetter – we would do well to make this clear to ourselves without illusions and without nostalgia.”
Chancellor Merz spoke about China next: “China today sees itself in explicit opposition to the US and claims to define a new multilateral order according to its own rules.
“Freedom of expression, freedom of religion and freedom of the press do not occur in this understanding – the commitment to the universal validity of human rights is rejected there as interference in internal affairs,” Merz said, before: “May I ask the question again?
“Given this situation, couldn’t it be right that we Europeans together with the Americans have to counter their common understanding of freedom, our common image of humanity with something better than what we hear from the Middle Kingdom? That too belongs to the truth of our relationship.”
Merz took a moment to speak about Germany’s antisemitism: “More than 80 years after the Second World War and after the end of National Socialism, there is again open and also violently carried out antisemitism in Germany from Islanmist groups, from the left and the right wing, and partly disguised in the guise of the media, culture, and freedom of expression.
“We will not accept hatred of Jews in this country – we stand at the side of all Jewish women and men in Germany – and we stand at the side of Israel.”
Lastly, Merz addressed the AfD: “80 years after the end of the Nazi dictatorship, forces are growing in our country that mock the victims of the Nazi regime, who admire imperialism, who scoff at the postulate of human dignity, who scoff at the rule of law and our Basic Law, who want to turn back our social progress of decades.
“We will not allow, and I say it once again, that these people from the so-called ‘Alternative for Germany’ ruin our country – we will not allow it.”
Merz continued: “This party here, in this hall, in this federal party congress, East and West, North and South, this party cannot be a partner for us – we will not do it – and we must take up this fight, also in the autumn in the East, to prevent the right-wing radicalism from moving back into the state chancelleries in Germany.”
