BERLIN: German government coalition talks, the major parties have announced a stop on all arms exports to any countries involved in the war in Yemen. But confusion remains over what the deal means.
The German government had announced Friday that it would “immediately” stop approving arms exports to any country participating in the war in Yemen. The move would include Saudi Arabia, a major buyer of German weapons. The document agreed upon by Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), its Bavarian sister party CSU and the Social Democrats (SPD) in exploratory coalition talks contains a sentence with major ramifications. The sentence, nestled towards the end of the document, could put and end to arms deals worth millions of euros. It succinctly states: “Effective immediately, the government will prohibit arms exports to countries involved in the Yemen conflict.German arms exports, government spokesman Steffen Seibert circumnavigated the issue and flatly stated: “Members of Germany’s caretaker government are bound by what the ministries agree among each other.” It was one of several vague statements made by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s longtime spokesman, when members of the press pounced upon the opportunity to question him at a regularly held press briefing.
Last year, arms exports worth a total of 1 billion euros ($1.22 billion) were approved. Moreover, in the last quarter of 2017 alone, Berlin approved the sale of trucks and patrol boats worth some 150 million euros to Saudi Arabia. Egypt, in turn, was set to receive exports worth almost 300 million euros. Much of what Berlin had previously approved for export before the announcement based on “rigorous case-by-case assessments” has not yet been delivered. If the agreed turnaround is taken literally, it could force Germany’s caretaker government to cancel these exports for good. Which could, in turn, lead German arms manufactures to sue for damages, as Matthias Wachter warns.
Wachter, who heads the Federation of German Industries’ (BDI) department for Security and Raw Materials, says “the government has legally approved the exports and that is what matters to companies.” But in principle, Wachter says, he understands this ban on arms exports to conflict states. The more time political figures in Berlin spend trying to analyze the exact meaning of the arms ban clause, the more confused they become.
