Did France surprise Germany by pledging tanks for Ukraine?

French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday announced that his country would become the first in the world to heed Kyiv’s repeated calls for Western-made armoured tanks by supplying its lightweight armoured combat vehicle, the AMX-10 RC. 

A day later, Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared in a joint statement with the United States that Germany would provide Ukraine with its Marder infantry fighting vehicles as well as a Patriot air defence missile battery. Berlin confirmed on Friday it would send a total of 40 Marders to Ukraine by the end of March. 

But the flurry of moves prompted the question of why such close European allies as Germany and France did not opt for a common approach to arming Ukraine. 

Domestically, Scholz had been the target of heckling – even from his own coalition partners – for taking his time on deciding to send tanks to Ukraine.    

“Other partner countries are once again leading the way. Now we can finally get started in the spirit of a Franco-German friendship, right? @Chancellor?,” Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, the head of Germany’s parliamentary defence committee and a member of Scholz’s junior coalition partner Free Democrats (FDP), tweeted. “The ball is now in [Berlin’s court].”

The Green Party, which is the governing SDP’s other coalition partner, is also mostly in favour of equipping the Ukrainians with more and heavier arms, as are many young Germans. Some lawmakers have even called for Scholz to go further and supply Ukraine with Germany’s main battle tank, the Leopard 2. 

Two Finnish politicians this week launched a “Free the Leopards!” campaign to “pressure” Germany into providing the tanks to Ukraine.

‘A total surprise’

Ulrike Franke, a security expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) in London and in Berlin, said that Macron had snubbed Scholz by going ahead with his announcement.

“Once again, Germany doesn’t look decisive, but rather like a follower – or even as if it is driven by others,” Franke said. 

Jessica Berlin, geopolitical analyst and founder of strategy consultancy CoStruct, said it does not seem that Macron had warned Scholz at all. “The Chancellery knew nothing about this; it came as a total surprise.”

Although Germany has delivered significant military aid to Ukraine since the start of the war – including Gepard anti-aircraft guns and the first of four IRIS-T surface-to-air missile systems – Scholz and his Social Democratic Party (SDP) have been increasingly under fire, both at home and within NATO, for their reluctance to provide Ukraine with badly needed Western tanks despite sitting on a stockpile of hundreds.

“Germany talks about wanting to be a leader in European security, but then it refuses to send industry stockpiles to Ukraine – literally vehicles, tanks and weapons that are just gathering dust in storage, all the while they could be saving lives in Ukraine. It’s unconscionable,” said Berlin, whose work has brought her from her base in the German capital to Ukraine four times in the past year.

Berlin said Macron’s decision to make the announcement first may have been a way to try to force the chancellor’s hand.

“Instead of allowing Scholz to delay [the tank shipments] even more, this forces him to either choose to go along with it and bring Germany forward, or let it be accused of inaction and of hindering NATO’s response.” 

Even so, Berlin said Germany is unlikely to interpret the move as an act of diplomatic betrayal, even if it was temporarily embarrassing for Scholz.

“For so many months, Germany had every opportunity to become the first [to make a move] and be hailed as the heroic decision-maker and take the initiative,” Berlin explained. “But instead it decided not to. So it was perfectly within France’s right to take that initiative when it finally could.”

The Russian ties

She said one reason the ruling SDP has been so reluctant to provide the Ukrainians with armoured tanks is due to its former policy of rapprochement toward Russia.

“Basically they have tolerated [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s expansionist behaviour over the past 20 years and helped make Germany and German industry dependent on this violent dictatorship,” she said, citing – among other things – Germany’s deep reliance on Russian gas.

“Thankfully, in the past year, they have recognised this as a mistake, and have taken large steps to decouple from this dependence. But this has all been a reaction to outside pressure.”

She also attributed the reluctance to the “generational fear” of nuclear escalation, like that of the Cold War in the 1980s, among SDP lawmakers.  

“But you’ll notice that in the past month, the Russian nuclear threats have all but disappeared from the headlines. Why is that? Because Putin was testing it out to see if his only trump card would work.”

Berlin said that Scholz’s policy of not going it alone had also played an important role in halting the delivery of Marders. But that argument only held up until France decided it had a large enough stockpile to start supplying Ukraine on its own this week.

Berlin said Germany’s decision to follow suit now actually presents it with an enormous opportunity.

“It can save face and change the narrative. From being the obstructionist partner in 2022 it can become the proactive partner in 2023 by being the first to send a main battle tank, the Leopard 2.”

As for the success of France’s unilateral announcement to get things moving, Berlin said: “It shows that pressure works.”