The German coalition government failed to agree on the creation of a National Security Council. It is reported by RBC with reference to Spiegel.
The creation of a new body should be enshrined in Germany’s national security strategy, however, after many months of negotiations, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (Social Democratic Party) and Foreign Minister Annalena Burbock (The Greens) did not agree on how the new structure would work, where it will be located and who will lead it.
At present, the project has been decided not to develop any more, the idea of the National Security Council has been removed from the agenda, the interlocutors who participated in the discussion of this issue told the newspaper.
When considering the creation of the National Security Council, the German authorities were guided by the model of the structure of the same name operating under the administration of the President of the United States (United States National Security Council). In the White House, such a council appeared in 1947, it deals with the most important issues of security and foreign policy.
A similar structure exists in Russia – the Security Council. It is headed by the President.
The publication notes that the dispute over the creation of the National Security Council raises the problem of the distribution of powers in foreign policy. On the one hand, the German Foreign Ministry did not want to transfer any additional powers to the chancellor’s office, where important decisions are already being made, for example, on EU policy or support for Ukraine, on the other hand, Scholz’s office opposed the subordination of a structure to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that can make independent decisions , the article says.
Controversy in the preparation of the national security strategy was caused not only by the question of the creation of the council, Spiegel wrote earlier. According to the publication, the key disagreements between different departments relate to military spending, including within NATO. In addition, the German Foreign Ministry wanted to transfer more powers to the government in the field of civil protection, but the federal states and municipalities opposed, the publication pointed out.
It was expected that they would be able to agree on the document by the Munich Security Conference, which took place in mid-February, but this was not possible. The publication indicates that another delay was associated with the change of the German defense minister. Boris Pistorius took over this post in January.
Source: Rosbalt
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