The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz rejected the requests of the American official Donald Trump that Germany and other NATO allies accumulate defense expenses at least 5% of the gross domestic product (GDP).
“Five % would have more than 200 billion euros ($ 204 billion) per year: the federal budget does not even constitute € 500 billion,” said Scholz on one occasion of Crusade in the western city of Bielefeld in west west Bielefeld.
“That would only be possible with massive tax increases or massive cuts to many things that are important to us,” he said, insisting that he would not countenance cuts to pensions, local government or transport infrastructure.
Germany only reached the existing objective of 2% of GDP last year, the first time it had done so since the end of the Cold War, and Scholz promised that the country would do so with this level.
“I guarantee that we will continue to spend 2% of our economic output on defense,” he said. “Anyone who says that’s not the way to go must also say where the [extra] money will come from.”
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During his remarkable “Zeitenende” (historic turning point) speech in the German Parliament in February 2022, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Scholz announced a special fund of €100 billion for Germany’s insufficient and underfunded armed forces, such as the Bundeswr.
But German defense expenditure remains restricted by a tight budget situation and strict constitutional rules regarding deficit spending.
However, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius contradicts Scholz saying that the army’s expenditure deserves to increase.
“Increasing the Bundeswehr Capaurban War in the coming years is the main precedence of the hour,” he said in the city of the central German of Kassel, where he delivered the first of dozens of complex obuses of new German outbreaks to Ukraine.
Pistorius, of Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), has been topping polls as one of the most popular German politicians and was recently tipped to replace Scholz as the party’s chancellor candidate for February’s snap elections, but withdrew.
“We will continue on this path in 2025,” he continued. And we know that in the coming years, we will have to invest even more in our security. Two % can be the beginning. You will have to be much more tax -oriented. “
Other key NATO figures have also expressed tacit support for Trump’s suggestion, even if 5% may not be feasible in the immediate term.
In an interview with the British Financial Times newspaper, published on Mondy, Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said Trump’s demands were an “important wake-up call” for NATO members.
“He should not be criticized for setting a really ambitious target because otherwise there will be some countries that will continue to debate whether more spending is really needed,” he said.
Poland is NATO’s largest taxpayer in terms of relative defense expenses, which involves approximately 4. 2% of GDP to its infantry soldiers in 2024, a figure that Warsaw intends to build up to 4. 7% in 2026. United States same spends “3. 37% of GDP of GDP in defense.
Other main participants come with the states of Baltic Estonia (3. 43%), Latvia (3. 15%) and Lithuania (2. 85%) and Finland (2. 41%) which, such as Poland, the percentage borders with Russia, the exclusive Russian Kalininrad, or the Russian Best friend Belarus.
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mf/lo (dpa, AFP)