GERMAN Chancellor Olaf Scholz faces opposition from his own Social Democrat backbenchers after agreeing to host US missiles with a range of up to 2,500km (1,550 miles), able to hit Moscow.
SPD parliamentary leader Rolf Mutzenich warns that “not every weapon makes Germany safer,” joining others, including even some Christian Democrats, in saying the Bundestag should have a say.
MPs are planning to force a debate next month, though government lawyers say that it does not need parliamentary consent.
They point to a 1984 Federal Constitutional Court ruling that the US was allowed to station nuclear missiles in Germany without parliament’s approval since the decision was “within the framework of Nato’s defence system,” which Germany had agreed to be part of.
The US plans to deploy Tomahawk cruise missiles, SM-6 ballistic missiles and new hypersonic missiles in Germany from 2026.
Missiles with such ranges would have been banned in Europe under the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty, but this was ripped up by former US president Donald Trump in 2019.
