Politicians from the SPD and the Greens have called for a general ban on arms exports in dictatorships. The SPD foreign expert Ralf Stegner and the Greens European politician Anton Hofreiter were reacting primarily to the ongoing export licenses from the traffic light government for countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which are involved in regional conflicts.
“If you deliver armaments, then to EU countries and NATO members or to Ukraine because it is an attacked democracy,” Hofreiter told the German Press Agency. In addition, one must carefully consider whether there is a geostrategic interest. “In the case of dictatorships, it’s actually never in our geostrategic interest, because with dictatorships you never know in which direction they will turn.”
Stegner does not want arms deliveries to “bloody dictatorships”
Stegner, who represents the SPD on the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Bundestag, made a similar statement. “Both according to our coalition agreement and the standards and principles of the planned arms export control law based on it, neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE meet the requirements that could justify such exports,” he told dpa. “Bloody dictatorships and involvement in the terrible war in Yemen speak for themselves.”
The traffic light government of the SPD, Greens and FDP continues to approve arms exports for both Saudi Arabia and the UAE. According to new figures from the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Saudi Arabia received three export licenses with a total value of 893,550 euros in the first half of the year. For the UAE, 30 permits were issued with a value of 59.7 million euros.
The exports to Saudi Arabia are exclusively deliveries for joint projects with EU and NATO partners, in which armaments “particularly for NBC protection purposes” are exported to the UAE, the ministry added in a response to a request from the left-wing Politician Sevim Dagdelen, who became known over the weekend. NBC protection means protection against nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
More Eurofighters for Saudi Arabia and A400M for UAE?
The exports to the two countries are also about weapons of different quality. Earlier information from the federal government shows that components for Eurofighter and Tornado fighter jets were also delivered from Germany to Saudi Arabia, which are manufactured in Great Britain. In addition, last year the traffic light government allowed the USA to export combat ship components worth 40.8 million euros to Saudi Arabia, which originally came from Germany.
According to Hofreiter, the federal government is currently discussing the approval of exporting 48 more Eurofighters to Saudi Arabia and 6 A400M transport aircraft to the United Arab Emirates. The exports to the two countries are particularly controversial because they belong to the alliance supporting the government in Yemen in the fight against the Houthi rebels. The war has led to a humanitarian catastrophe in one of the poorest countries in the world.
Yemen clause from the coalition agreement with derogation
The 2021 coalition agreement between the SPD, the Greens and the FDP states: “We will not issue export licenses for armaments to states as long as they can be shown to be directly involved in the Yemen war.” However, the traffic light government is continuing the exemption for supplies to joint projects practiced by the previous government made up of Union and SPD. These include the Eurofighter and the A400M.
Hofreiter and Stegner would now like to put a stop to that. “A country like the United Arab Emirates is a dictatorship. You can also call it a monarchy, but it’s actually a dictatorship,” said Hofreiter. He pointed out that the UAE in Libya was working with General Khalifa Haftar, backed by Russian Wagner mercenaries, and supporting the insurgency in Sudan. “It’s just not in our geostrategic interest.”
Hofreiter also against exports to Egypt
He also doesn’t think much of arms exports to Egypt, said Hofreiter. Outside the EU and NATO, on the other hand, he could imagine deliveries to India, for example, a democracy whose army was largely equipped by Russia. “Perhaps we will be able to get India more on our side with certain exports,” said the Green politician. But as a matter of principle, armaments should no longer be supplied to dictatorships.
Clarity could be created in the planned arms export law, which the coalition has been negotiating for more than a year. So far, however, no agreement is in sight.
Left calls arms exports a “disgrace”
Sharp criticism of the ongoing exports to Saudi Arabia and the UAE also came from the left at the weekend. “It’s a disgrace how the traffic light government is breaking promise after promise and fattening the Yemen war with arms deliveries to authoritarian Gulf states instead of developing peace initiatives with Middle Eastern countries,” said left-wing foreign policy expert Dagdelen.
