{"id":450905,"date":"2025-09-25T17:42:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T17:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/450905\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T17:42:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T17:42:10","slug":"catherine-connolly-compares-german-arms-build-up-with-1930s-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/450905\/","title":{"rendered":"Catherine Connolly compares German arms build-up with 1930s \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Presidential candidate Catherine Connolly<\/a> has said there are \u201cparallels\u201d between the current increase in military spending in Germany<\/a> and its rearmament during the 1930s. <\/p>\n

The Independent candidate<\/a>, who is supported by a broad left-wing alliance of parties, was speaking as part of a fireside chat with the University College Dublin<\/a> Politics Society on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

Standing over the comments on Thursday, Ms Connolly said Ireland should use its neutrality to challenge imperial powers and \u201cI think America is one of those imperial powers\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ms Connolly told the event that the world was \u201cnormalising war and normalising genocide\u201d, and that peace has become an unacceptable word. She said promoting peace and neutrality was one of her \u201cmain motivating factors\u201d in running for president. <\/p>\n

Ms Connolly told students that Ireland, as a neutral country, should champion peace, particularly given its history as a colonised country, its experience of famine and of the Troubles and subsequent peace process in Northern Ireland. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think we should draw on that experience and use all our skills as a neutral country to go down a road of peace,\u201d she said. \u201cIf we lose, we lose, but you lose by war anyway. But let\u2019s try. Let\u2019s say: this is wrong. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Catherine Connolly\u2019s \u00c1ras campaign stalls on thorny question of HamasOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re increasing our spend all over Europe on the military industrial complex. They\u2019re absolutely championing the cause of the military-industrial complex in Germany, as a booster for the economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeems to me, there are some parallels with the \u201930s. I don\u2019t wish to depress you. There is hope. And we have voices. And we can use them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Germany is planning to double<\/a> its defence spending over the next five years, with plans to invest almost \u20ac650 billion in largely European contracts and suppliers. <\/p>\n

Under the measures agreed by the German government earlier this year, the country would hit Nato\u2019s new defence spending target of 3.5 per cent of GDP by 2029. <\/p>\n

When asked about the UCD comments on Thursday, Ms Connolly said: \u201cAfter the second World War we said no more wars. More and more, we have a more profitable military industrial complex that\u2019s heading in one direction, spending more and more money. It\u2019s actually very hard to keep the figures in my head. We\u2019ve gone from millions to billions to trillions. We are not putting that money into peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about Germany\u2019s security fears amid Russia\u2019s incursions into European states, Ms Connolly replied: \u201cI think we have a very volatile situation in the world. I think we have imperial powers. I think America is one of those imperial powers. As a neutral country, we have a duty to use our neutrality to call out the abuse of power no matter where that is, whether by Russia or by American or by whatever country.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Presidential candidate Catherine Connolly has said there are \u201cparallels\u201d between the current increase in military spending in Germany…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[123360,2000,299,1824,86299],"class_list":{"0":"post-450905","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-catherine-connolly","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-germany","12":"tag-irish-neutrality"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450905","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=450905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}