Astrid Chevreuil and Doreen Horschig
On February 20, 2025, shortly before Germany’s snap elections, Friedrich Merz, chairman of the conservative Christian Democratic Union and Germany’s next chancellor, made a prominent declaration about the future of European nuclear deterrence: “We need to have discussions with both the British and the French—the two European nuclear powers—about whether nuclear sharing, or at least nuclear security from the UK and France, could also apply to us.” Germany has been a key participant in NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangement since the Cold War, hosting U.S. nuclear weapons and maintaining dual-capable aircraft that could deliver them if necessary. This role has long been a symbol of transatlantic solidarity, yet it has become the subject of renewed political debate amid growing uncertainty over U.S. commitments to NATO’s security guarantees.
Q1: How is uncertainty over U.S. commitment shaping the European nuclear deterrence debate?
A1: Following Merz’s comments in an interview on Saturday, March 1, 2025, French President Emmanuel Macron said he was ready to “open the discussion” on European deterrence and recalled that “there has always been a European dimension to France’s vital interests within its nuclear doctrine.” Nevertheless, he made it clear that such a sensitive discussion would have to be carefully framed in the current strategic context where the U.S. political commitment might be questioned.
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