German politicians have paid tribute to US President Joe Biden for his decision not to run for the White House again. However, the German government continued to avoid taking a position on the US election campaign with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Monday. Biden’s preferred successor, Kamala Harris, received praise, however.
The 81-year-old Biden announced on Sunday that he would not run for a second term in office in light of the massive doubts about his mental and physical fitness. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) praised Biden on Sunday evening as a friend and “reliable partner” of Germany. “His decision not to run again deserves recognition,” he wrote on the online service X. Thanks to Biden, “transatlantic cooperation is close, NATO is strong, and the USA is a good and reliable partner for us.”
Deputy government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann did not want to take a position on the US election campaign on Monday. “We are preparing for all conceivable possibilities,” she said. It now remains to be seen whether Vice President Kamala Harris will actually be made the Democrats’ presidential candidate and how the election against Republican Trump turns out in November.
However, Scholz has already “met Harris several times,” said Hoffmann in response to numerous questions. She mentioned the Munich Security Conference and the Ukraine Peace Conference in Switzerland in June. The Chancellor got to know Harris “as an experienced and competent politician.”
Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck (Greens) said Biden’s decision to withdraw filled him with “deep respect.” He had worked “for democracy, for the country, for the people for half a century,” he wrote on Instagram.
“Joe Biden puts his country’s interests above his own,” said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) at the EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels. Regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election, one thing is clear: “We must invest more in our own security, Europe must become stronger.” This applies “especially in the area of foreign, security and defense policy.”
The Federal Government’s transatlantic coordinator, Michael Link (FDP), described Biden’s withdrawal as a “deep turning point” for Germany and Europe. “There has probably never been a US president who, out of his own loyalty, has taken the EU institutions and the ‘old’ continent as a whole so seriously,” he told the “Tagesspiegel”. Link also stressed that with regard to the Federal Government’s preparations for the US election, Biden’s withdrawal “changes nothing for now”. The government is preparing “intensively for both scenarios”.
However, there is now “a chance that the race will be open” between Trump and the Democrats, said Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) on Deutschlandfunk. As a Social Democrat, he is naturally “crossing his fingers” for the Democrats.
Heil is currently in the USA. SPD party leader Lars Klingbeil is travelling to the Democratic Party convention in Chicago in August, as the party confirmed in a report in the “Rheinische Post”. The visit had been planned for some time.
There were also tributes to Biden from the conservative opposition: “Joe Biden has served the American people for more than five decades,” wrote CDU leader Friedrich Merz on X. His decision deserves “the greatest respect.” CSU leader Markus Söder emphasized on X that Biden had “done a lot for his country, NATO and Europe.” His withdrawal during the election campaign was “the right decision.”
