By Andreas Rinke<\/p>\n
BERLIN, August 27 (Reuters) -The German government agreed on Wednesday to create a standing National Security Council with the goal of better planning for the country\u2019s medium- and long-term security needs.<\/p>\n
The new body, which replaces the Federal Security Council and Security Cabinet, was a central manifesto promise of Chancellor Friedrich Merz, reflecting a sense that Germany had lost focus on security policy during the relative peace of the post-Cold War years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is long overdue,\u201d said Stefan Mair, head of the SWP think tank. \u201cThe value will lie less in the decisions taken than in ensuring that different ministries see the security situation in the same way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Germany was caught off guard by Russia\u2019s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with gas stores half empty, and was forced to reorient its entire energy infrastructure away from Russia.<\/p>\n
The invasion prompted soul-searching in German policy circles, with many criticising previous governments for allowing the country\u2019s armed forces to shrink since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n
The new council, which will have a permanent staff located in Merz\u2019s riverside office, is meant to respond to immediate threats and plan for new risks emerging on the horizon.<\/p>\n
It will be chaired by Merz, with the finance minister acting as his deputy. The foreign, interior, justice, economy, defence, development and digitalisation ministers will also be permanent members.<\/p>\n
Their numbers can be boosted on an ad hoc basis by representatives of German states, allied countries or scientific experts.<\/p>\n
Germany is the latest of many countries to establish a central security committee on the model of the United States\u2019 National Security Council, with Britain among the earliest imitators in 2010.<\/p>\n
(Writing by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Sharon Singleton)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Andreas Rinke BERLIN, August 27 (Reuters) -The German government agreed on Wednesday to create a standing National…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[2000,299,1824],"class_list":{"0":"post-377433","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-germany"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115100390845147080","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}