Germany's Scholz calls for urgent 'mass production' of European arms
Europe must ramp up production of armaments massively and urgently, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Monday, warning that the continent now “does not live in times of peace”.
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Speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony for Rheinmetall’s new munitions factory, Scholz said European nations must pool together orders and financing to provide the defence industry with purchase guarantees for the next decades.
“This is urgently necessary because the painful reality is that we do not live in times of peace,” he said, pointing to Russia’s war on Ukraine.
“We must move from manufacturing to mass production of armaments,” he said, arguing that “those who want peace must be able to successfully deter aggressors”.
What if it is you who are the aggressors? What if it is NATO, the USA, Britain, France, and Germany who are the aggressors in Ukraine in a war they can't possibly win? What if this is all about the economy. Once our economies are mostly based on the production of armaments, we can never afford to have peace. What madness!
Weighed down by its militaristic past, Germany has in recent decades been circumspect about its defence forces and armaments industry.
But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 upended Berlin’s post-World War II pacifist tendencies, and forced its transformation into a proponent of heavy rearmament.
Germany is now Ukraine’s second biggest weapons contributor, and Scholz has been vocal in pushing other EU nations to give more.
What happens in Ukraine will decide “if our peace order, our rules-based world has a future,” (*SR) said Scholz, adding that Russia must “fail with the attempt to swallow its neighbour by force”.
*SR - "Our peace order" is a sick joke! It is a Satanic Reversal of reality. NATO and America provoked the attack in Ukraine, and did so deliberately. It's good for their economies, and they don't care if Ukraine is driven back to the stone age.
‘Rather empty'
The chancellor also reiterated that armaments pledges from other EU nations for Ukraine were still insufficient.
The EU has set up a joint financing mechanism to meet Ukrainian demand for weapons, but the bloc has struggled to make good on promised deliveries.
Brussels pledged to provide a million artillery shells to Ukraine by March 2024, but the EU last week admitted it can only produce just over half that by the deadline.
Scholz underlined that it was key to shift gears from years of under-investment in the defence sector to building up much-needed production capacity.
“Tanks, howitzers, helicopters and air defence systems are not lined up on the shelves. If nothing is ordered for years, then nothing is produced,” he warned.
Rheinmetall’s new factory in Unterluess is scheduled to begin production in 2025 with an initial production run of 50,000 shells a year, before progressively reaching its full annual capacity of 200,000.scribe
Putting the volume in perspective, Scholz said that thousands of shells are fired on a daily basis at the frontlines in Ukraine currently.
In addition, the German army’s own weapons store was “rather empty” even before the war.
Rheinmetall’s boss Armin Papperger said the aim of the new factory is to help secure Germany’s “strategic sovereignty in the large-calibre ammunition domain”.
The company is aiming to churn out up to 500,000 shells this year overall, a seven-fold jump from the 70,000 annual production before the Ukraine war.
(AFP)
Possible war crimes cited as Netherlands'
supply of F-35 parts to Israel ruled illegal
Feb. 12 (UPI) -- A Dutch appellate court ruled Monday it is illegal for the Netherlands to distribute American-made combat aircraft parts to Israel due to a "clear risk" of humanitarian law violations.
In its decision, the Hague Court of Appeal agreed with a coalition of human rights groups that the government's distribution of American-made parts for Israeli F-35 fighter jets is illegal under Dutch law to due to the likelihood they will be used in the commission of serious violations of the humanitarian laws of war as part of Israel's campaign against Hamas militants in Gaza.
The court, siding the groups Oxfam Novib, PAX Netherlands and The Rights Forum. agreed that Israel does not take sufficient account of the consequences for the civilian population when conducting its attacks in Gaza, which it said have caused "a disproportionate number of civilian casualties, including thousands of children."
It ordered the government to stop supplying the parts within seven days.
Palestinian health officials say 28,000 people, including both Hamas fighters and civilians, have died so far in Israel's campaign against the terrorists responsible for the Oct. 7 surprise assault against Israel, in which 1,200 Israelis were slain and hundreds more were kidnapped.
The vast majority of those casualties are civilians, mainly women and children, the Palestinians say. Israel blames the high civilian death toll on a cynical strategy by Hamas to operate in heavy populated areas and use local population as human shields.
The potential risk to Gazan civilians has heightened considerably in recent days with the stated intention of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to launch an anti-Hamas offensive against the southern Gazan city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of refugees have crowded to escape the assault elsewhere in the coastal enclave.
The Dutch government immediately vowed to a lodge an appeal of the decision with the country's Supreme Court. Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Geoffrey van Leeuwen said the action would be taken within the next seven days.
"In the government's view, the distribution of American F-35 parts is not unlawful," he said in a statement. "The government believes it is up to the state to its determine foreign policy. The government is lodging an appeal in cassation because it believes the Court of Appeal did not take sufficient account of this."
In the meantime, the Netherlands said it would urgently consult with other members of the program to supply Israel with F-35 parts, vowing to do "everything it can to convince allies and partners that the Netherlands remains a reliable partner in the F-35 project and in European and international defense cooperation."
The F-35 program is essential not only for Israel's security but also that of the Netherlands and the Middle East, the government said, "in particular with regard to threats emanating from the region, for instance from Iran, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon."
The human rights groups launching the suit hailed the decision.
"This positive ruling by the judge is very good news, especially for the civilians in Gaza," said Michiel Servaes, director of Oxfam Novib. "This is a important step to force the Dutch government to adhere to international law, which the Netherlands has strongly advocated in the past.
"Now that Israel has just launched an attack last weekend against the city of Rafah, where more than half of Gaza's population is in shelter, it is very important that the Netherlands takes immediate steps," he added.
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