As new candidate for the chairman of the CDU and candidate for chancellor, alongside Laschet, Merz and Spahn, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the CDU / CSU parliamentary group Norbert Röttgen, who has made a name for himself in the areas of foreign, security and European politics, now comes into play. Röttgen is considered very competent and as a supporter of a stronger German and military role in foreign missions.

The meanwhile resigned CDU party chairman and still acting defense minister Kramp-Karrenbauer / AKK, who had already unsuccessfully proposed EU or NATO missions in northern Syria, spoke at the MSC and her proposal of an European military mission in the Persian Gulf with German participation was gratefully received by Macron as France is already there with the first warships and has urged a vote in the EU on such a joint mission to get a picture of the mood and thinks about sending a European Coalition of the Willing as the first European mission to set a precedent. However, the Europeans do not want to participate in the US mission, since they do not share Trump’s maximum pressure policy, the termination of the Iran deal and do not want to be drawn into an U.S.-Iranian war, but first only to secure the international trade routes and their own ships. It remains to be seen which position a Brexit- GB will take then.

Furthermore, after the Libya follow-up conference after the Berlin Libya conference, a European military mission to enforce the arms embargo in Libya has been discussed. Although an European military mission in the Persian Gulf is less risky than a European Libya mission, in which one would have to stop and possibly fire at Turkish ships from NATO partner Turkey – with unforeseeable consequences – Erdogan-Turkey could also threaten to open the refugee gates or to take revenge.

Or would an European mission bring up or even fire at ships of the Russian nuclear power? Without US support? Especially if you had successful control at sea, arms deliveries to air and land would still be possible. Do you want to isolate the entire airspace and the entire Libyan-Egyptian border in order to prevent arms deliveries from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Russia to General Haftar?

This does not seem to be so mature and the first wish to play a European role is probably the father of precedent obedience, which could also result in a fiasco. Much will depend on the extent to which a first European military mission is successful and without is greater losses, so that the European public can also be won for further out-of-area missions and European military missions