PHOENIX
Berlin/Bonn (ots)
The FDP foreign politician Alexander Graf Lambsdorff rejects conscription in Germany despite Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. “Every year we have about 900,000 people who celebrate their 18th birthday. After the two-plus-four contract, we have a maximum size of the Bundeswehr of 370,000,” explains the FDP politician in the phoenix interview on the sidelines of the FDP Party Congress in Berlin. “If we want to make the most of it, we still don’t even need half of a cohort that turns 18. Military justice can no longer be represented in Germany at all. The conscription debate is a ghost debate, especially since we have a highly professional, high-tech army have.”
At the same time, Lambsdorff advocates paying more attention to reservists. “We need longer servants and not people who are smuggled through the barracks for nine or twelve months,” says the FDP politician. “Reservists have this soldierly knowledge for the troops.” Keeping them active for the troops and making the offer more attractive to them is important.
Despite his move to Moscow as ambassador and the move of defense expert Agnes Strack-Zimmermann to EU politics, Lambsdorff sees no lack in the future foreign policy expertise of the FDP. “In Johannes Vogel, we have one of the leading China experts in the Bundestag. In Bijan Djir-Sarai, we have a Secretary General who was previously the parliamentary group’s foreign policy spokesman. That means we have foreign policy talent. Foreign policy is still at the heart of the party anchored in front.”
In view of the difficult situation, Lambsdorff is resolutely looking forward to the diplomatic task in Moscow. “I’m going back to my old job in a difficult situation and to a country with which we have to communicate, no matter how difficult the situation is,” says Lambsdorff. “The job of a diplomat is to keep channels open. I see that as my job.” The liberal rejects the criticism that too little has been done diplomatically in exchange with Russia in view of the war. “I think it’s a rumor that there is no diplomacy. There is diplomacy, there is this professional contact, there are now and then phone calls from the Federal Chancellor to the Russian President.” At the moment, however, there is no sign of any willingness on the Russian side to stop hostilities. “We have to wait and see what happens militarily and make diplomatic preparations for a situation in which there will be peace again.”
The entire interview can be found shortly www.phoenix.de
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