The German Foreign Minister is in charge of the federal government’s first joint national security strategy.
(Photo: IMAGO/Chris Emil Janssen)
Berlin The national security strategy is on the agenda for the upcoming government cabinet meeting on Wednesday. The Handelsblatt learned this from several people familiar with the cabinet plans. According to public information, the presentation in the Bundestag is planned for the next day on June 15. People familiar with the processes assume that the appointment will not be postponed. The strategy comes just in time for the German-Chinese government consultations on June 20th.
The approximately 40-page document will also deal with dealings with China, which is becoming increasingly offensive to the outside world, including in the region around Taiwan.
The first national security strategy in the history of the Federal Republic is one of the Federal Government’s key foreign and security policy projects and is overseen by the Federal Foreign Office. In the coalition agreement, the traffic light had agreed to present the basic document in the first year of government. But then it was delayed several times. Initially, the strategy should be ready by the end of 2022, then the goal was the Munich Security Conference in February.
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But there were always disagreements between the FDP, SPD and the Greens. Months ago, the traffic light coalition moved away from the initially planned establishment of a National Security Council because the coalition partners could not agree on where this body should be located.
At the end of May, a cabinet consultation that had already been planned had to be postponed because, among other things, there was disagreement over the wording for setting up the possibility of hackback, i.e. digital defense against cyber attacks from abroad.
The FDP has had concerns about these counterattacks for years. The liberals share the view with cybersecurity experts that counterattacks to defend against attacks on the Internet could lead to collateral damage. This means that uninvolved third parties would also be affected by the consequences of counterattacks. On the other hand, the FDP fears the danger of a digital arms race. But now the last discrepancies have been cleared up.
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Once the National Security Strategy is approved on Wednesday, work on the China Strategy will be finalized. It is already clear that this will be postponed until after the summer break.
The China document is eagerly awaited. For weeks, however, representatives of the government and the traffic light parties have been emphasizing that there will be no surprises in the China strategy – also the first in the history of the Federal Republic. The tenor will be similar to that in the coalition agreement, it is said. A first draft of the strategy was made public last year, which also included new rules for companies with a view to their China business.
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