German Ambassador to Greece Andreas Kindl spoke of the challenges Germany is called upon to face, as well as the need for Europe to rearm itself to deal with external threats against it, in an interview to Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA) on the sidelines of the 10th Delphi Economic Forum (DEF X).

Speaking to journalist Nikos Drossos of ANA-MPA, Kindl underlined in terms of multiple challenges, "The list of challenges you mentioned is just the top of it, if you want. I mean, we have all these challenges as European Union, but also now with our new government, or coming government, as Germany, we have had a phase of economic stagnation, if you want, and we are planning to look forward in terms of economic growth. 

"In the European Union I think what we need, and everyone says that, is more unity. We need more unity in the European Union because we are a strong economic and political actor, but we need to show this also. So in order to confront the challenges we have, not just from the old enemies if you want but suddenly from our best friends, this is very difficult and we need to be in the position and find a way to strengthen the European unity because, as major actor, it is our chance to confront these challenges."

In terms of the defense and security sector, the German ambassador expressed the hope that Europe "is not on its own, because whatever we do, whatever we want to do in terms of re-arming, in terms of strengthening the defense industry, it will not be done from Monday to Tuesday. We need time, especially in defense matters. You need time to develop and so on, and so we still depend on our partners, we still depend on capacities and capabilities the Americans bring into the game, and obviously we need to work on both these fronts. We need to strengthen our own industry, we need to strengthen the industry of our friends, Ukraine, but we also need to deal as much as possible and as close as possible with the US, for them not to leave us alone in the rain." 

Concerning the opportunity that a rearming of Europe can provide for a re-establishment of the European defense industry, Kindl pointed out that "what the Commission president put forward at the beginning of March with the Rearm Initiative and the possibilities of financing defense industry, and then two weeks later with the White Paper on developing defense, is extremely important. It will be discussed of course in the next few weeks in Brussels and it's been discussed at highest level, but this is extremely important because it gives us a momentum, it gives us a strong push towards a development of the defense industry, which we would have had to do already in the past but we are now starting to do."

Asked to comment on Europe's problem of not having a unified voice on foreign policy issues, but various national agendas instead, the German ambassador underlined, "Personally, I have worked in European foreign policy for seven years as one of my jobs, and I always found that in the public, the idea of diverse opinions and diverse politics has been overrated, because in 95% of the matters we agree fully, it's not a big thing, but of course you are right, in some of the decisive issues we have sometimes different opinions. One of our proposals, one of our ambitions is to make the European Union more efficient, more effective and we think that one of the ways how to do this would be to have more or a larger proportion of qualified majority decisions. 

In terms of the power of a veto, Kindl agreed that it should be abolished in some sectors "especially in the defense, in the foreign affairs realm. There needs to be consensus, except for very few small items. But I think we need to push for that, because if we want to enlarge the European Union - this is an enlargement process - we expect a lot from the candidates. They need to do everything by 100% before they even enter. But we also, we ourselves, need to reform. We need to - we need to reform these things. So I think it is important that we introduce the idea of Qualified Majority and this is the momentum, this is a chance to do it." 

Commenting on the stance of countries opposing a unified European stance, the ambassador noted that "it is very unfortunate that in a policy area where we think everyone should be united, where we think that everyone should have the same threat scenario, the same threat feeling sentiment, that one country is taking the day off, so to say. So I think ideally we find a way to include this country and make it interesting enough, but if it's not possible, we need to find, and we did find in the past, other ways to do this. If you look at a coalition of the willing, or some, you know, 'sending the person to the toilet' in the meantime" so there is consensus.

Asked to comment on whether he envisages a normalization of German-Russion relations following the war in Ukraine, Germany's ambassador to Athens said, "First of all, I think how the end of this war will look, this is a matter of speculation because both red lines are far away from each other. So it is difficult to even think of this end of the war right now. But it is obvious to us - and it's our estimation - that Russia will not be happy at all with even ending the war. There is a strong feeling from our side and we think we have proof that Russia would be testing Article 5 of NATO. It will be testing the way how NATO as an alliance deals with threats coming from abroad. And already... it's clear that Russia is trying its best to attack even member states, not by military means but by hybrid means, disinformation, whatever you want. So we don't expect Russia to be satisfied with any agreement with Ukraine, but we expect them to test the red lines of NATO, especially the Article 5... possibility and it will it will be seen whether all the other countries will respond positively. So I don't know I'm not happy with the situation as it is, and therefore I don' think we are going back. We cut energy relations with Russia by a hundred percent after the attack of Russia on Ukraine, and I don't think we're going back. We are planning completely differently, our diversification of energy sources is completely different."

Ambassador Kindl was also asked to comment the negative forecasts on the economy's growth in Germany as a key European country. He responded, "What the American president did with his threats and implementation of tariffs is a very bad thing. It doesn't help anyone. It doesn't help the Americans and it is one reason why he withdrew it or why he makes his pause now, because he got hit from his own people. So this is not a good thing at all. It harms not just the European Union and the US but it harms... million of other people in the world most of them most vulnerable globally - it's global, it's a global attack, so of course this is not a good thing and we have to - I think if it continues or if it comes back after the pause, we have to calculate with a lower growth rate, that's true, but we want to do everything we can now with our new government coming. We want to do everything we can in order to increase growth, coming back with investment, and so on."

Following up on his mention of the new government in his home country, Kindl was asked to comment on whether he expects a major policy shift. "The two parties that built the government agreed to a coalition agreement yesterday. Now it goes through the parties, they will all have to agree and so on, but we're looking forward to a smooth process. This would be one of the shortest and fastest processes in forming a government after elections. So we're quite happy, and I hope that, and I know that the government feels the responsibility and the expectations coming from EU member states, but everyone else - especially from us as people, as citizens - that this comes true and the program will be implemented. So the coalition agreement, which is a piece of paper of more than 140 pages, in the field of security and foreign policy, there is a continuation of our policy we've had for a very long time. We don't expect this to change, there's one institutional issue, it is planned to hold a national security council. So this is an interesting institutional issue, it's new, and for the first time in 60 years the foreign ministry will be led by a minister from the Christian Democrats, so this is also new. So we're looking forward to that. On all the other subjects, the idea is to have an economy-friendly government, a government that encourages investments. And you know that we have changed our constitution just three weeks ago, in order to allow more defense expenditure, and obviously we're looking at infrastructure, and we're looking forward to implementing these measures."

(The interview is available online at the following link: https://youtu.be/l8WjryaSBTU)