A clash between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House was a “manufactured escalation,” Germany’s likely next chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Monday.
“It was not a spontaneous reaction to interventions by Zelenskyy, but obviously a manufactured escalation in this meeting in the Oval Office,” Merz told a news conference in Hamburg.
Merz, who is seeking to form a coalition after his conservatives won a snap election last month, said that Europe was now under pressure to act quickly.
“We must now show that we are in a position to act independently in Europe,” he said.
