Merz announced Germany's plan to discuss nuclear weapons with France and the UK

Germany is going to hold talks on cooperation on nuclear weapons with France and the United Kingdom. This was announced on March 9 by Friedrich Merz, chairman of the Christian Democratic and Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) bloc.

"In my opinion, nuclear cooperation with France and the UK is an issue that we need to discuss anyway," Merz told Deutschlandfunk radio.

He added that he would discuss Germany's participation in the European "nuclear umbrella" at coalition negotiations and at the EU level. At the same time, the politician stressed that Germany cannot and will not possess nuclear weapons.

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Rudiger Lukassen, a member of the Bundestag defense committee from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, said on March 6 that the country should have its own nuclear weapons — in the absence of a "nuclear umbrella" from the United States, European countries should act independently.

On the same day, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda announced that he had contacted his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron and expressed a desire for the Baltic Republic to fall under the European "nuclear umbrella." He, in turn, offered to send his adviser to Lithuania to discuss the details of this initiative.