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She said: “The US leadership is increasingly withdrawing from its role as guarantor of European security.<\/p>\n
“Tensions are growing within the NATO alliance. And we have to take seriously the concerns of the Eastern European countries about Russia.<\/p>\n
“So, the Europeans increasingly have to take care of their own security.”<\/p>\n
The politician also defended the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy, which she said allowed EU member states to “pool military capabilities”.<\/p>\n
However, she added: “But it is also about a European strategy on cybersecurity, for example.<\/p>\n
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“We are not equipped for this, but that is the task of security policy in the 21st century.”<\/p>\n
Ms Baerbock was elected co-leader of the Greens parliamentary alliance in 2018 alongside Robert Habeck.<\/p>\n
Since then, she has been credited with helping keep the environmentalist party popular among a significant portion of the German public.<\/p>\n
Her main rivals at Sunday’s Bundestag election are Armin Laschet from Ms Merkel’s CDU party and Germany’s current Vice-Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party (SPD).<\/p>\n
Mr Scholz has signalled his willingness for his centre-left SPD to enter into a parliamentary coalition with the Greens.<\/p>\n
DON’T MISS: The far-left Die Linke – The Left – is also positioning itself as a potential partner for a three-way coalition with the two parties.<\/p>\n However, the SDP may find it difficult to form a government with Die Linke, given its plans to scrap NATO.<\/p>\n The party wants to replace the alliance with a new collective security bloc involving Russia.<\/p>\n It also calls for the end of all foreign deployments of Germany’s military, the Bundeswehr.<\/p>\n The party has also demanded the end of all arms exports and the removal of US nuclear weapons from German soil.<\/p>\n Die Linke’s president, Gregor Gysi, has admitted that its anti-nuclear stance could prove too much for the SPD and Greens to agree to a coalition.<\/p>\n On Monday he was quoted by Politico as saying in an interview: “If the SPD and the Greens absolutely want nuclear weapons in Germany, there will be no coalition with us.”<\/p>\n However, he stressed that the policy would not be brought in “tomorrow” and equally described Die Linke’s NATO plans as a “vision”.<\/p>\n
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