Germany Discussing €200 Billion for Emergency Defense Fund
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Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz has opened talks with the Social Democrats to quickly approve as much as €200 billion ($210 billion) in special defense spending, according to a person familiar with those discussions.
Officials from Merz’s Christian Democrats and the SPD are discussing ways to get around Germany’s tight restrictions on government borrowing to free up resources for the country’s dilapidated military, said people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named discussing private conversations. They are considering pushing a vote on the new package, which would be double the amount of one approved three years ago, through the lame duck parliament, they said.