MOSCOW, February 17. /TASS/. Paris will not support Berlin fielding its own nuclear arsenal, nor will it put Germany under its own nuclear umbrella, Alexander Kamkin, a specialist in Germanic studies, political scientist, and associate professor at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, wrote in an opinion column for TASS.

According to the expert, France has its own trump card in the EU: its nuclear potential. "It is currently continental Europe’s only argument in favor of its sovereignty. At the security conference in Munich, [German Chancellor Friedrich] Merz announced Berlin’s plans to work with Paris to build a pan-European nuclear deterrent system. According to him, confidential negotiations between the countries have already begun," Kamkin added.

"Obviously, France opposes Germany’s ambitions to have its own nuclear weapons. Moreover, their implementation—while technically possible—would violate the Two Plus Four Treaty and the NPT (Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons - TASS). In my opinion, the German government is unlikely to take this step. However, if Europe’s antagonism toward Russia grows, it cannot be ruled out that the German authorities would put this issue on the agenda," the analyst believes. "At the same time, Berlin’s attempt to crawl under the French nuclear umbrella is also unrealistic, since Paris, I think, will not share its nuclear sovereignty," he noted.

According to Kamkin, it is still difficult to say how the very construction of a pan-European nuclear deterrent system will ultimately look in practice. "But the nuclear discourse, initiated, in essence, by Berlin, clearly carries the risk of becoming yet another topic leading to the division of the two countries’ positions in the sphere of military development," the expert believes.