Latest developments
Germany voted against the UN General Assembly resolutions on the TPNW in 2018, 2019, and 2020. The German government has consistently opposed the idea of a treaty banning nuclear weapons. The opposition Green Party released its party platform for the 2021 election on 22 November 2020, confirming that it is a foreign policy priority for the Green Party to get Germany to join the TPNW. Opposition party Linke also favours German adherence, and support for the TPNW keeps growing in the German Parliament. 168 federal parliamentarians have signed the ICAN Parliamentary Appeal. A cross-party working group on the TPNW (Parlamentskreis Atomwaffenverbot) was established in the Parliament in September 2019. The former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer and former defence minister Rudolf Scharping were among the signatories to an open letter in September 2020 calling on current leaders in umbrella states to 'show courage and boldness' and join the TPNW. Four federal states and almost 100 cities have signed ICAN's Cities Appeal, including all 16 capitals of federal states. See: bit.ly/39OtzQS, bit.ly/2krGFfn, bit.ly/2ojf2GU, bit.ly/2TwCaOp.
Recommendations
- Germany should ensure that nuclear weapons do not have a role in its national defence plans and security policies. It should ensure the removal of the foreign nuclear weapons on its territory, renounce the retention and potential use of nuclear weapons on its behalf, for instance through a declaratory statement, and refrain from endorsing future alliance statements in support of weapons of mass destruction.
- Germany should urgently sign and ratify the TPNW, and encourage other states to adhere to the Treaty. Until it is in a position to do so, it should welcome the TPNW as a valuable contribution to the global disarmament and non-proliferation architecture, attend its meetings of states parties as an observer, and work with its states parties on practical steps towards disarmament.
