This past weekend marked a major shift in Germany’s foreign and defense policy. On Saturday, the German government announced it would send arms to Ukraine. Then on Sunday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz outlined a new blueprint for German foreign policy at a special session of the Bundestag. In a significant shift, he committed to delivering weapons to Ukraine, increasing Germany’s defense spending, and also reducing Germany’s dependence on Russian oil and gas.
Join us on Wednesday, March 2, at 10:00 am ET for a discussion with Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger, former Foreign Editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, about Scholz’s speech and what it means for Germany and Europe more broadly.
Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger (1985 ACG Legislative Aide Fellow) is a German journalist and political scientist. He is the former Foreign Editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, where he wrote about international politics. Before joining the newspaper’s editorial staff in 1986, Mr. Frankenberger gained deep insight into the U.S. political decision-making process when he worked as an assistant to a U.S. member of Congress. He was a Bosch Fellow at the Transatlantic Academy in Washington, DC, in 2011 and a Marshall Fellow at Harvard University in 1990. He serves on the Board of various institutions dealing with foreign and defense policy issues. Mr. Frankenberger holds a Master’s Degree in Political Science, Economics, and American Studies from Frankfurt University.
