I wasn’t there when millions of Germans retrained from virologists to general staff officers in the spring – I was still missing the previous further training module to become a national coach. Therefore, in the current debate about tank deliveries to Ukraine, I can unfortunately only ask questions, not give answers.
For example: What is it that makes Western-made main battle tanks so special that, according to the SPD, we should under no circumstances deliver them to Ukraine – but all kinds of other heavy weapons can?
An argument that one hears from the federal government: battle tanks are offensive weapons and could be misused by Ukraine for attacks.
But why then are the Soviet-made tanks already supplied by the West not a problem? And anyway: Why abused? After all, we want Ukraine to recapture its territory – as is happening quite impressively these days. Or do parts of the federal government fear that the Ukrainians will roll right through to Moscow with our Leopard tanks?
And what exactly did Kevin Kühnert mean when he said to RTL on the subject of battle tanks that the statement “that we don’t want to encourage Russia to act completely irrationally in the end and attack completely other countries.” So is the SPD Secretary General Do you think that Russian President Vladimir Putin has so far acted largely rationally in his attack on Ukraine?
(Photo: via REUTERS)
If so, why should Western battle tanks of all things trigger Putin’s irrationality? Some of the war equipment delivered to the Ukraine, from the German Panzerhaubitze 2000 to the US Himars rocket launcher, seems to me to be on a par with a Leopard tank that may have been decades old in terms of destructive power.
But like I said, I’m not really familiar with weapon systems. But a bit about the course of political processes, and therefore my forecast: The federal government’s no-tank dogma will prove as elusive as all the other odd arguments, especially from the SPD, with which arms deliveries or Russia sanctions were delayed or blocked. Anyone who followed the corresponding requests to speak yesterday could already see the withdrawal movements of the other two traffic light parties.
The Ukraine war has a paradoxical consequence for Turkey. The country is suffering from hyperinflation, the local currency, the lira, is depreciating rapidly, and the political climate on the Bosphorus has also been cozier. Not the environment in which entrepreneurs normally like to invest.
But Turkey has been experiencing a boom in foreign direct investment for several months. In February 2022, just $464 million in foreign direct investment came together. Since then, the value has increased in mighty steps month after month. In June, the latest reported month, the Central Bank of Turkey identified $1.7 billion worth of foreign direct investment.
Together, our Istanbul correspondent Ozan Demircan and logistics reporter Christoph Schlautmann researched the cause of this amazing trendwhich can be summed up in one word “nearshoring”.
In view of the supply bottlenecks caused first by the corona pandemic and then by the Ukraine war, many European companies want important suppliers to be at a distance from which goods can also be delivered by train or truck instead of by ship or plane as with classic “offshoring”. The suppliers are guided by the wishes of their customers – and are increasingly producing in Turkey instead of, for example, in the Far East.
Germany can only dream of such positive effects of the Ukraine crisis. After the big gas traders like Uniper, the first energy suppliers are now also getting into trouble in this country. They have to be rescued with amounts in the millions or even slip completely into insolvency. Smaller suppliers such as E-Optimum or Kehag are reporting difficulties, as are the first municipal utilities such as Bad Säckingen, Bad Belzig and most recently Leipzig.
Apparently this is just the beginning. According to Handelsblatt information from industry circles, other municipal utilities are having payment difficulties. Several energy suppliers have already applied for financial support from the federal government, according to government circles. The volume is in the tens of billions.
The problem: Even if many suppliers buy their energy long-term and have secured the prices, every company also procures electricity and gas for its customers in short-term trading – currently at horrendous prices. Because electricity and gas contracts with your own customers are often subject to fixed prices, the purchase prices cannot be passed on one-to-one.
Tobias Federico from market researcher Energy Brainpool warns: “The energy crisis already has the dimensions of the crisis that triggered the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy.” The insolvency of the US bank in 2008 caused a chain reaction in the entire financial system and triggered a worldwide recession. An exaggerated comparison? We will see.
And then there is the fundamental question that investors ask themselves in every crisis: Get back on the stock market now – or is it still going down? Bank of America has compiled a checklist of ten events based on past stock market cycles. When at least eight of these events have occurred, prices will usually go back up. For example, the US Federal Reserve must have cut interest rates at least once. Our investment team has counted and has only come up with four events that have occurred so far.
In this case, optimists would say: the glass is already half empty.
I wish you a day of sustained bottoming.
Best regards
Her
Christian Rickens
Editor-in-Chief Handelsblatt
hp: Ukraine has pushed back the Russian army in parts of eastern Ukraine. Is this the “military turning point”? What does that mean counteroffensive for the further course of the war? Should Germany and the West now supply more weapons or even tanks to Ukraine? Write us your opinion in five sentences on [email protected]. We will publish selected articles with attribution on Thursday in print and online.
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