“We live in a world in which some intend to shake the order by military via (…) we must be able to defend ourselves,” he emphasized this Friday Friedrich Merzat the traditional summer conference and to hundreds of journalists. It is a ritualized appointment, but the first in its case, nicknamed in the journalistic corrillos such as a ‘grilled merz’ for its format, 90 minutes open to any question. “The first priority of my government is to rescue our recession economy,” he said. Regarding defense, its determination is Provide the country with the “greatest conventional army in Europe”. It has the ‘liberation’ of the debt brake, which Germany approved shortly before its arrival and that facilitates the task to its coalition between conservatives and social democrats.
The start of Merz’s mandate has been marked by his desire to internationalize as the leader of a power whose economy must reactivate, after two years in recession. At the same time, it is determined to retire Germany on the global map in the defensive. With his plans to rearma he seems to want to content Donald Trump. But you must do it without arouse suspicion in France and the United Kingdomthe two European atomic powers.
That Poland, EU spearhead in defense spending, this phrase does not like so much is a minor issue for the chancellor and conservative leader German Christian -democratic union (CDU), the party that had foreign ministers such as Konrad Adenauer (1949-1963), of Helmut Kohl (1982-1998) and of Angela Merkel (2005-2021). None of these predecessors, nor the social democrats Willy Brandt (1969-1974), Helmut Schmidt (1974-1982) o Gerhard Schröder (1998-2005) placed defense among their priorities. The social democrat Olaf Scholz yes announced a ‘zeitenwende’ (‘change of era’) following the Russian Ukraine Invasion. He articulated an investment package of 100,000 million euros. The premature end of his legislature has left as a pending subject the update of his armed forces.
Merz’s determination to abandon the paradigm of defensive shyness is clear. But so far he has not specified where the resources will come from. Its social democratic partners are obliged to another defense, that of the social state. Boost rearmament at the expense of social cuts They would catapult them to political irrelevance, after having sunk in third position in the general elections of last February, behind the conservatives of Merz and the ultra -rightist Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Duplicate military spending
Merz rejects the amplified community budget for two billion euros for the period between 2028 and 2034 proposed by its compatriot and co -religionist Ursula von der LeyenPresident of the European Commission. It affects Germany, first taxpayer to the community block. His rearme plans are national. And the public coffers that interest you are the Germans.
The National Budgets of 2025 prepared by the Social Democratic leader, Vice Chancellor and Minister of Finance, Lars Klingbilthey foresee a record expenditure of 503,000 million and a indebtedness of 81.8 billion euros. Its struts are the modernization of infrastructure and safety investment. The evolution planned for defense is spectacular: this year 62.4 billion-10,000 more than in 2024–; In the next four years, 82,700, 93,350, 136,400 and 152,000 million euros will be climbed.
They are the figures with which Merz signs its commitment to raise the basic expenditure in defense up to 3.5% of GDP by 2029. It is currently at 2.1%. It will take off from the intermediate position between NATO allies to place, as Trump demands, in 5%. To the so -called basic expenditure is added another 1.5% for derived investments, such as helping Ukraine. If Merkel was accused of practicing the ‘appeasement’ with Vladimir Putin, since under his mandate the German agency of the Russian gasMerz can be identified with that term, but applied to Trump.
The alien atomic triangle
When Merz talks about giving himself the largest ‘conventional’ European army he alludes to a red line for his country. Germany should not possess Atomic weapons own, according to the agreement signed in 1990 as a preamble of the German reunification Among the four winning powers of Nazism-Eeuu, France, the United Kingdom and the then Soviet Union-plus Western and communist Germany. The nuclear power of the EU is France, to which the United Kingdom extra -community. The only atomic bombs in German territory are those deposited in the US baseswhose activation code has Trump and that, in NATO terminology, they are noted to the ‘deterrent’ strategy.
Merz, in addition to his efforts not to anger Trump, has deployed a series of comings and goings between Paris and London. This last week he signed with Keir Starmer a ‘Post-Bregit Friendship Agreement, whose strengths are security and defense. On the 23rd will receive Macron again in Berlin. Above the help of the relaunching proclamations of the Franco-German axishave a thorny issue on the table: the French claim to assume 80% of the Future Air Combat System (FCAS). It is a shared project between France, Germany and Spain, on which the European Hunting of Sixth Generation, successor of the Eurofighter and the French Rafale depends. Berlin obviously does not agree with such a French domain.
The mili in the bedroom
The financing of rearme is not clear or how to motivate new vocations to move from the 182,000 current troops to the 460,000 who, according to the Minister of Defense, Boris Pistoriuswill specify in 2030 to provide an army tailored to a power with almost 84 million inhabitants.
Germany said goodbye to military service in 2011. It was chosen to leave it ‘in suspense’ to be able to reactivate it without constitutional obstacles to an emergency situation. Pistorius advocates implementing a “Voluntary recruitment” According to the Swedish model. According to this system, all young people will receive a survey, where they are asked if they are interested in providing military service. The most suitable will be ‘invited’ to enroll. Among the incentives is a base salary of 2,000 euros. According to ‘Der Spiegel’, Pistorius contemplates that, if the marked objectives are not achieved, a mandatory recruitment for “security imperatives”.
Pistorius is not the only supporter of recovering military service. The president of the country shares his opinion, Frank-Walter Steinmeierformally independent but originally from the social democrat. The most common argument is that only in this way it is guaranteed that the army is a ‘reflection’ of society, in all its layers and ideologies, and not a magnet for extremisms.
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