Party – Erfurt – Ramelow and the left wing disagree on the issue of arms transfer – politics

Posted On: November 21, 2022

Erfurt (dpa/th) – With his stance on arms shipments to Ukraine, the Prime Minister of Thuringia and left-wing politician Bodo Ramelow are not on party lines. Left Federal Chairman Martin Schirdewan underlined this point and at the same time distanced himself from Ramelow’s position.

Schirdewan told the Funke Mediengruppe newspaper that arms deliveries were not a party position. However, he shares Ramelow’s view that the pressure on Putin should be increased. Ramelow previously told the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”: “In the past I was against the transfer of weapons. Today I would like to add that anyone who is attacked has the right to defend himself.”

Russia launched a war of aggression against Ukraine on February 24. Ukraine is also defending itself with weapons supplied from Western countries such as Germany.

Schirdewan called on the German government to “finally do everything to persuade Russia to start peace negotiations.” In his view, this includes an “EU diplomatic initiative” to engage China and India. “As leftists, we all agree that only diplomacy can ensure lasting peace and that arms companies in particular will benefit from a long war of attrition,” Schirdewan told the Funke media group.

In an interview with “SZ”, Ramelow again criticized his controversial party partner Sahra Wagenknecht – for example for claiming that federal government sanctions against Russia would hurt Germany more than Russia. “I don’t know why Ms. Wagenknecht keeps telling the truth,” said Ramelow. The argument that the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline should be opened to signal Russia’s willingness to negotiate is also “nonsense”.

The head of government also expressed anger at the way his party was handling its presidency on the Federal Council. The 66-year-old said he was proud to have represented the Federal Republic to the outside world for a year. “My federal party doesn’t pay attention to that.” Ramelow is Germany’s only Left Prime Minister to date and was President of the Bundesrat in rotation from November 2021 to the end of October 2022. In this capacity he made several trips – including to Chile.

Ramelow accused Left party executives of not seeing the need for an exchange about his role as President of the Federal Council. “I haven’t spoken to my party’s international department about my trip because they haven’t even been in touch,” Ramelow said. He had to “push gently” left-wing parliamentary groups in order to present his work.