\n<\/p>\n
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has initiated talks with France on strengthening Europe\u2019s nuclear deterrent as he urged the continent to bolster its defences and \u201crepair\u201d strained relations with the US.<\/p>\n
The discussions, centred on the possibility of Germany joining France\u2019s nuclear umbrella, underline mounting anxiety in Europe over an expected reduction in the US military presence on the continent, as Russia\u2019s full-scale war on Ukraine enters its fifth year. <\/p>\n
Opening the Munich Security Conference on Friday, Merz said Europe \u201cmust become a global political power with its own security strategy\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have started initial talks with French President Emmanuel Macron about European nuclear deterrence,\u201d he said. He stressed these discussions were \u201cstrictly embedded in our nuclear participation within Nato\u201d and insisted Germany will \u201cnot create zones of divergent security in Europe\u201d. <\/p>\n
He reminded the largely US and European audience of policymakers and security experts that the EU treaties contain a mutual defence clause \u2014 Article 42 \u2014 in the event of \u201carmed aggression\u201d against one of the EU member states. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe must now spell out how we want to organise this in a European way \u2014 not as a substitute for Nato, but as a self-supporting strong pillar within the alliance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
His comments come as European governments seek to close a potential deterrence gap amid repeated signals from Washington that it intends to scale back its defence posture in Europe and shift resources and troops towards the Indo-Pacific and its immediate neighbourhood. <\/p>\n
The US nuclear arsenal includes more than 100 gravity bombs stationed in Europe. These are under American control but, according to the nuclear sharing deal within Nato, are designed to be dropped by fighter jets flown by Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. <\/p>\n
Macron plans to give a speech about nuclear deterrence later this month, according to several people close to the matter.<\/p>\n
Unlike Britain\u2019s nuclear deterrent, France\u2019s arsenal sits outside Nato\u2019s nuclear sharing arrangements and does not rely on American technology. While the UK has full autonomy in firing the weapons, it cannot build, maintain or modernise them without US co-operation. <\/p>\n
Paris has long maintained that its \u201cvital interests\u201d, which underpin its nuclear doctrine, have a \u201cEuropean dimension\u201d, deliberately preserving ambiguity over the circumstances in which a French president might authorise the use of atomic weapons. <\/p>\n
Last year, Macron offered to \u201copen the strategic debate\u201d with interested European countries to determine \u201cif there are new co-operations that may emerge\u201d.<\/p>\n
Addressing the conference later on Friday, Macron confirmed he was holding a \u201cstrategic dialogue\u201d with Merz and other countries \u201cto see how we can articulate our national (nuclear) doctrine\u201d. <\/p>\n
These discussions are part of efforts to reorganise Europe\u2019s security architecture because the previous one \u201cwas totally designed during cold war times\u201d, he said. The nuclear deterrence talks were \u201ca way to create convergence in our strategic approach and strategic culture between Germany and France\u201d, Macron added.<\/p>\n
The discussions are tentative and explorative rather than focused on a particular goal, three people briefed on the matter told the FT. They are not considering deploying French weapons in other European states, two of the people said, but rather exploring how France\u2019s posture and doctrine could shift to better protect non-French territory.<\/p>\n
\u201c[France] has said they are open and willing to discuss their own capabilities in slightly wider circles,\u201d said one of the\u00a0people briefed on the confidential discussions. \u201cQuite a few Europeans see it as a very good thing that France and the UK possess these weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n
Merz insisted talks with France and Europe\u2019s efforts to develop its own defence strategy did not mean \u201cwriting off\u201d Nato. Although he declared the old world order over, he called for \u201crepairing and reviving\u201d the transatlantic relationship.<\/p>\n
\u201cA gap has opened up between Europe and the United States,\u201d he said, referring to last year\u2019s speech in Munich by US vice-president JD Vance, who lashed out at Europe for supposedly betraying its democratic values.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe culture war of the Maga movement is not ours,\u201d Merz said. <\/p>\n
\u201cFreedom of speech ends here for us when that speech is directed against human dignity and basic law. We do not believe in tariffs and protectionism but in free trade. We stand by climate agreements and the World Health Organization,\u201d he added, drawing applause.<\/p>\n
Despite the tensions, Merz argued the transatlantic relationship remained preferable to isolation in the new era of \u201cgreat powers\u201d.<\/p>\n
Europe, he said, was too vulnerable without the US, and Washington also needed allies to contain China, which was \u201claying claim to global leadership\u201d.<\/p>\n
Recommended<\/p>\n
China \u201csystematically exploits the dependencies of others. It is reinterpreting the international order to suit its own interests,\u201d said Merz, who is due to travel to Beijing later this month.<\/p>\n
Macron echoed Merz on the need for Europe to become a \u201cgeopolitical actor\u201d and re-arm. But he also appeared to warn Germany\u2019s leader about the temptation of going it alone instead of pursuing common European defence projects after Berlin loosened its purse strings to pour hundreds of billions into its military. <\/p>\n
The French leader said he believed in the Future Combat Air System, the \u20ac100bn project between France, Germany and Spain that is on the brink of collapse because of tensions between the companies involved. Berlin and Paris are discussing whether to move to the next phase as planned, or significantly scale back the project by dropping the common jet component.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard for me to understand how we will build new common solutions if we destroy the few ones that we have,\u201d Macron said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has initiated talks with France on strengthening Europe\u2019s nuclear deterrent as he urged the continent to bolster its defences and \u201crepair\u201d strained relations with the US. The discussions, centred on the possibility of Germany joining France\u2019s nuclear umbrella, underline mounting anxiety in Europe over an expected reduction in the US military<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[23059,4041,17405,518,3263,14572,220,1456],"class_list":{"0":"post-44419","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-deterrence","9":"tag-emmanuel","10":"tag-friedrich","11":"tag-holds","12":"tag-macron","13":"tag-merz","14":"tag-nuclear","15":"tag-talks"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}