BERLIN, May 16 (Xinhua) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended plans by her federal government to increase defense spending in Germany on Wednesday.
Speaking during ongoing budgetary consultations in the federal parliament (Bundestag), Merkel hit back at opposition criticism of a scheduled rise in military funding from 38.5 billion euros (45.5 billion U.S. dollars) in 2018 to 41.5 billion euros in 2019.
"This is not a matter of participating in an arms race, but simply ensuring the availability of adequate equipment," the chancellor said, referring to long-standing complaints by the government's official armed forces commissioner.
Following widespread reports of the poor state of the German armed forces, Berlin has a responsibility to provide soldiers with a "much broader range of material and equipment" to ensure they can fulfill their international missions.
Defense spending is currently the second largest item on the German government's 2018 budget, but trails far behind planned labor market and social expenditure (139 billion euros). The appropriate level of military funds has become the subject of heated discussion in the governing grand coalition, with defense minister Ursula von der Leyen demanding a further increase to at least 1.5 percent of annual gross domestic product (GDP) or around 60 billion euros.
Finance minister Olaf Scholz has so far rebuffed such calls by his cabinet colleague, arguing that higher spending does not automatically translate to a better defense strategy.
Even though Germany is set to continue to fall significantly short of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) defense spending target of 2.0 percent of GDP, Merkel emphasized on Wednesday that Germany's commitment to responsibilities it shoulders as part of the military alliance remained a priority for Berlin.
"One country alone cannot guarantee security," Merkel told delegates in the federal parliament. While reiterating earlier criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear accord, Merkel however argued that close transatlantic relations in this context retained value regardless of recent disagreements between the European Union (EU) and the Trump administration.
