{"id":111279,"date":"2025-05-18T08:53:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T08:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/111279\/"},"modified":"2025-05-18T08:53:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T08:53:09","slug":"germany-must-have-stronger-army-than-britain-says-friedrich-merz-as-he-commits-to-spending-5-of-gdp-on-defence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/111279\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany must have stronger army than Britain says Friedrich Merz as he commits to spending 5% of GDP on defence"},"content":{"rendered":"

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has declared that Germany must have a stronger army than Britain, committing to spend five per cent of annual GDP on defence.<\/p>\n

In his first major address to the German parliament, Merz said: “We must make all the means available that the Bundeswehr needs so that it can become the strongest conventional army in Europe.”<\/p>\n

The Chancellor’s comments suggest Germany now hopes to eclipse the leading armies of Europe: Britain, Poland and France.<\/p>\n

The Bundeswehr currently consists of about 180,000 regular soldiers, considerably more than the British Armed Forces’ total of more than 135,000 regular troops.<\/p>\n

\"Friedrich<\/p>\n

Germany’s chancellor Friedrich Merz has declared that Germany must have a stronger army than Britain, committing to spend 5 per cent of annual GDP on defence<\/p>\n

Getty<\/p>\n

Germany also has 296 battle tanks, exceeding Britain’s stockpile of 213 tanks, of which under 150 are believed to be in serviceable condition.<\/p>\n

Germany overtook the UK in military spending in 2024, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.<\/p>\n

However, experts still consider the British Army’s level of combat experience and quality of training to be superior to Germany’s.<\/p>\n

Unlike Britain, Germany has no nuclear weapons programme, though it hosts an estimated 20 US nuclear missiles at military bases without control over them.<\/p>\n

\"Friedrich<\/p>\n

Germany has vowed to become a major European security power in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine<\/p>\n

Getty<\/p>\n

The UK’s surface fleet has 52 warships compared to Germany’s 30-40, and nine submarines to Germany’s six.<\/p>\n

Merz has scrapped Germany’s strict borrowing limits on the defence sector, with projects costing more than 1 per cent of GDP now eligible for unlimited funding.<\/p>\n

His government is also considering a return to conscription, abandoned in 2011, if a new voluntary military service scheme fails to attract enough recruits.<\/p>\n

Germany has vowed to become a major European security power in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, requiring massive reinvestment in the Bundeswehr.<\/p>\n

\"Friedrich<\/p>\n

Merz has scrapped Germany’s strict borrowing limits on the defence sector<\/p>\n

Getty<\/p>\n

Johann Wadephul, Merz’s foreign minister, said Berlin was ready to commit to spending 5 per cent of annual GDP on defence as demanded by Donald Trump, the US president.<\/p>\n

Some German officials fear the country is not psychologically prepared for war.<\/p>\n

Former president Joachim Gauck suggested Germans were “too mentally weak to cope with warfare” after decades of peace.<\/p>\n

Germany and Britain have announced a new joint project to develop long-range missiles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has declared that Germany must have a stronger army than Britain, committing to spend…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,299,4884,12,1144,285,712,512,16,15,1764,263,8048],"class_list":{"0":"post-111279","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-northern-ireland","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-scotland","18":"tag-sgg","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-wales","22":"tag-world-news","23":"tag-world-politics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114527994167276261","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}