In the wake of President Trump's comments that NATO is "obsolete", and European 'leaders' renewed calls for a European army, Angela Merkel has been forced to deny Germany is interested in acquiring nuclear weapons amid calls for it to lead a European "nuclear superpower."
As we noted previously, calls for an EU Army pre-exist current trends among Europeans and Americans to reject international institutionalism for a more nationalistic, sovereign state oriented model of governance. The Guardian was reporting in 2015 that European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was calling for an EU Army to show Russia that the bloc was "serious about defending its values." The shock result of Brexit merely accelerated plans within the EU that were already in progress.
But with Trump's NATO comments, chatter picked up further in recent weeks of the need for the European Union to invest in its own nuclear deterrent.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the head of Poland’s ruling party, told a German newspaper this week he would “welcome an EU nuclear superpower”.
A senior MP from Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democrat party (CDU) has called for Germany to press for a European nuclear deterrent.
Spiegel magazine has questioned whether it is time for Germany to acquire its own nuclear weapons.
And the Financial Times has called for Germany to “think the unthinkable” on the issue.
As The Guardian reports, the German Government has moved quickly to stymie those rumors...
“There are no plans for nuclear armament in Europe involving the federal government,” a spokesman for Angela Merkel said.
Leading voices in Germany have warned that the country acquiring its own nuclear weapons is not the solution.
“We would open Pandora's box and start an arms race,” General Hans-Lothar Domröse, a former Nato commander, said. “It would make it even more difficult to prevent other countries like Iran from getting the bomb.”
“Obtaining nuclear weapons, either directly or indirectly through the EU, would be a serious violation of international law for Germany,” Wolfgang Ischinger, the head of the influential Munich Security Conference, said.
Still, all this talk of nuclear arms race is a great reason to buy moar stocks by the looks of the market.