In a parliamentary speech yesterday in the context of the debate on next year’s fiscal budget, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said: “I will say this again. This is the moment, this is the time when we need to explore what possibilities exist. It is right when the President of Ukraine [Volodymyr Zelenskyy] says, and I will say it again, that we need another peace conference with Russia present at the negotiating table…. This is the task we have to deal with now to find out what is going on.” Scholz added that “peace that respects Ukraine’s integrity and sovereignty must be just, and not imposed or achieved by capitulation.”
“We have done many things to make this possible with the peace conferences that have taken place around the world: in Denmark, in Saudi Arabia, in Malta, in Switzerland,” Scholz said. “This should not stop, even if we know that some of those who voted for right-wing populist parties did so because they disagreed with our support for Ukraine,” Scholz concluded, referring to the results of the Sept. 1 state elections in Saxony and Thuringia in Eastern Germany.