Merkel Urges to Boost Germany's Defense Spending ahead of NATO Summit
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel said the country should increase military spending instead of expecting allies to bear the burden of defending Europe.
Germany currently spends 1.2 percent of its gross domestic product on the military, while some other NATO members spend up to 3.4 percent of their GDP on defense, Merkel said at her party’s economic meeting in Berlin.
"It will not go well in the long run if we say that we hope and expect others to carry the defense burden for us," Merkel said late Tuesday, Sputnik reported.
NATO expects member states to spend 2 percent of the GDP on defense. In the past years, German defense expenditure shrank to 1.2 percent from 1.4 percent of the GDP. This will likely be a major topic at the upcoming NATO summit in Warsaw in early July.
