COLOGNE, Germany\u00a0\u2014\u00a0After lawmakers spurned government plans to lease a handful of armed drones from Israel, ministry of defense officials have no choice but to let the topic rest until after national elections in late September.
The SPD lawmakers opposing the leasing arrangement argued that military and legal questions surrounding the use of armed drones by Germany had yet to be resolved. At the same time, they still were in favor of a surveillance-only drone, Thomas Oppenheimer, leader of the SPD Bundestag faction, stressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An unarmed reconnaissance drone, however, hardly would be worth the investment of\u00a0\u20ac1 billion, the defense ministry argues. In the government’s view, the offensive capability represents the “added value” that comes with the hefty price tag, the spokesman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Regardless of who wins the election in the fall, the topic of armed drones is sure to come up again. Recent polls see Merkel’s\u00a0Christian Democratic Union\u00a0leading the race against the SPD and its top candidate for chancellor, Martin Schulz, by roughly 15 percentage points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Von der Leyen’s plan for the Heron TP drones envisioned Airbus operating five aircraft stationed in Israel. The drones would carry the Jedi missiles, which include an option for scalable explosive power, Spiegel Online reported last month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After lawmakers spurned government plans to lease a handful of armed drones from Israel, ministry of defense officials have no choice but to let the topic rest until after national elections in late September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":51610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":7,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[7,46,11],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3425],"class_list":["post-56530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air","category-europe","category-global"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"PTQOQ33ZRJFYRNINWSACHDWFSE","arc_canonical_url":"\/air\/2017\/07\/05\/german-mod-rests-its-case-on-armed-drones-for-now\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n