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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Kate Connolly in Berlin

Merz presses Greens to name their terms for German defence spending rise

The flags of EU and Germany flutter in front of the Reichstag building, the seat of the German parliament in Berlin.
An expanded group of far-right and far-left MPs may block the spending plans in the new Bundestag. Photograph: Liesa Johannssen/Reuters

Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting has tried to win over the Greens to his ambitious but controversial plans to raise the country’s defence spending, promising to expand the scope of the plans and demanding of them: “What more do you actually want from us?”

The outgoing parliament met on Thursday to debate the creation of a €500bn (£420bn) fund for infrastructure investment and radical changes in Germany’s borrowing limits in order to boost defence spending.

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