Raising defense budget to 1.5 pct of GDP by 2024 in Germany's interests: defense minister

Source
Xinhuanet
Editor
Li Jiayao
Time
2019-08-01 08:39:24

BRUSSELS, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Rebuilding the Federal Armed Forces is Germany's "national aim" and it is "in our own national interests" to raise German defense budget to 1.5 percent of GDP by 2024, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, German defense minister, told reporters Wednesday.

"We (Germany) must also continue along the ever-upward path in pursuit of fulfillment of our obligations within NATO as regards the 2 percent target," she added during her first visit to NATO's headquarters as Germany's defense minister.

In 2014, NATO members agreed to gradually raise their national defense budgets to 2 percent of GDP within a decade.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly singled out Germany for its insufficient defense spending. At last year's NATO summit, Trump even threatened to leave the defense alliance if its members did not reach the agreed target soon.

Asked about whether or not he is confident that Germany will reach 1.5 percent GDP in 2024, Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg, who hosted Kramp-Karrenbauer Wednesday, told reporters that "I am confident that Germany will make good on the promises that Germany and all other allies made back in 2014."

"We have to remember that the pledge to increase defense spending was something we all agreed at the NATO summit in Wales in 2014. This is something we do because it is in our security interests to invest more," he noted.

"I welcome the fact that Germany has started to increase. We have seen a significant increase in German defense spending over the last years," he told reporters during a joint press point with German defense minister.

Claiming that the United States is paying a "very big" and "disproportionate share," Trump has been pushing the other NATO members to pay more on defense expenses.

He also suggested NATO raise its 2-percent military expenditure benchmark to a higher standard.

NATO's European allies have spent more on defense for a second consecutive year in 2017, but the majority of them still failed to meet the target of spending 2 percent of their GDP on defense.

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