German Chancellor Olaf Scholz must “stop” Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock before she becomes a “security risk” and pushes Berlin towards a conflict with Moscow with her “thoughtless statements,” Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder said on Feb. 22 at the traditional Political Ash Wednesday event in Passau. Söder’s Christian Social Union is part of the opposition in the Bundestag.
The foreign minister and her party, Alliance 90/The Greens, are talking themselves into a “war frenzy” amid the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Söder said, referring in particular to when Baerbock told the European Council in January that the EU was “fighting a war against Russia,” words that sparked an uproar at the time.