Posted on 03/04/2025 2:35:10 PM PST by hardspunned
Germany's likely next chancellor, Friedrich Merz has announced plans to raise hundreds of billions of euros to boost defense and infrastructure amid fears that the United States is losing interest in Europe and the NATO alliance.
The announcement came amid exploratory talks between Merz's Christian Democrats (CDU), along with its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Social Democrats (SPD). Merz made the announcement alongside the CSU's Markus Söder and the SPD co-leaders Lars Klingbeil and Saskia Esken. It comes just over a week after the CDU won Germany's federal election. Merz has said he aims to form a government coalition with the SPD.
The leaders said they had agreed to table a motion in parliament to alter the German constitution in order to ease controls on defense expenditure which surpasses 1% of Germany's GDP from debt brake limits. Based on German GDP in 2024, that would include all expenditure above approximately $43 Billion.
Furthermore, the country's 16 individual federal states are also to be permitted to take out loans up to the equivalent of 0.35% of their economic output in order to further boost performance.
Merz: 'Whatever it takes'
"We are aware of the scale of the tasks ahead of us, and we want to take the first necessary steps and decisions," Merz said, adding: "Given the threat to our freedom and to peace on our continent, the mantra for our defense has to be: whatever it takes."
(Excerpt) Read more at amp.dw.com ...
Couldn’t cough up that NATO money though could you?
President Trump told them five years ago to build up their defenses.
Where are they going to find the soldiers?
That wacky Fred Mertz... such a character.
“Und jetzt, Deutsche zollverein!”
But they won’t actually spend it.
Why buy the cow when the milk was free for eighty years?
IIRC Germany is already broke. Spending wildly like this will put their citizens into debt slavery to the government, just like US.
Where are they going to find weapons that haven’t been proven to be obsolete, overpriced MIC junk on the Uke battlefront?
Ever notice how Fred was the biggest mooch in TV history? He fits right in with our NATO “allies”.
Better them than us!
Looks like President Trump finally got the Europeans to pay their fair share...
Where are they going to find the money?
They are not the world reserve currency like the dollar.
Maybe history repeats itself and they go into hyperinflation followed by Hitler.
Good, time to pull our troops out of Germany.
TODAY!
Who do they think they need to defend themselves against? The ones they probably should are muslims but they won’t do a damn thing about it.
Please understand that Israel is not the problem. GLOBALISM IS THE PROBLEM.
Population of Germany 84 Million. Second to Russia.
I heard today, the adf has enough votes to block new spending. The Government can still move ahead with the spending. But they have to cut EXISTING programs to fund it
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.