{"id":87727,"date":"2025-05-09T15:47:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T15:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/87727\/"},"modified":"2025-05-09T15:47:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T15:47:09","slug":"germanys-merz-softens-skepticism-of-us-role-in-nato-after-meeting-rutte-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/87727\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany\u2019s Merz softens skepticism of US role in NATO after meeting Rutte \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

The tone was a sharp departure from February, when Merz \u2014 then the German opposition leader and a chancellor candidate \u2014 accused the Trump administration on German public broadcaster ARD<\/a> of treating \u201cEurope\u2019s fate with indifference\u201d and warned that Germany might soon have to build a defense alliance without the U.S. \u201cI never thought I\u2019d have to say this on live television,\u201d he said at the time.<\/p>\n

In office since early May, Merz is now signaling unity with the security alliance, even as he presses for greater efficiency and industrial reform. He\u2019s called for fewer and simpler weapons systems in Europe, and cited Ukraine\u2019s wartime drone production as a model.<\/p>\n

Asked about Ukraine\u2019s ambition to join NATO, Merz stuck to Berlin\u2019s cautious stance: \u201cUkraine\u2019s EU accession will certainly come before NATO membership \u2014 should that ever happen.\u201d He also declined to say whether Germany would support sending peacekeeping troops to Ukraine after a ceasefire.<\/p>\n

On Turkey, another large NATO partner, Merz emphasized its strategic value to the alliance and confirmed plans to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan, without providing details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The tone was a sharp departure from February, when Merz \u2014 then the German opposition leader and a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[1213,473,7057,32,2595,2000,299,7058,1945,11070,1824,2992,8536,811,461,657,49,771,335,1116],"class_list":{"0":"post-87727","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-americas","9":"tag-defense","10":"tag-defense-budgets","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-drones","13":"tag-eu","14":"tag-europe","15":"tag-european-defense","16":"tag-friedrich-merz","17":"tag-german-politics","18":"tag-germany","19":"tag-mark-rutte","20":"tag-recep-tayyip-erdogan","21":"tag-security","22":"tag-turkey","23":"tag-ukraine","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-war","26":"tag-war-in-ukraine","27":"tag-weapons"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114478661266471237","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87727","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=87727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}