By John Eligon from NYT World https://ift.tt/ImEgPtc
New German defence chief pledges to speed up race to Nato 2pc spending target
Germany’s new defence minister has picked an early fight inside the country’s troubled coalition, pledging to beef up military spending against the will of junior partners the Social Democrats. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer will make it a priority to allocate a budget equivalent to 2 percent of the German economy to the Bundeswehr, the 56-year-old told the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper in an interview published on Sunday. The woman known as “mini-Merkel” due to her loyalty to the Chancellor, took over as leader of the Christian Democrats from Angela Merkel at the end of 2018 and is set to take a run at the Chancellery in 2021 at the latest. “We made a clear commitment to NATO’s two percent goal. I know that we can’t get there from one day to the next, but I’m just as clear on the fact that we must get there in the end,” she said. Ms Kramp-Karrenbauer, who took over as defence minister on Wednesday, is likely to ignite yet another fire under Berlin’s tinder-dry coalition with her first ...
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