Germany's new Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Wednesday said that Berlin supports relaxing strict EU fiscal rules to let member states ramp up defence spending as he sought to establish his European credentials on his first foreign visits.
Less than a day after scrambling to get enough votes in parliament to secure his job, Merz visited France and Poland in a high profile start to his term when he will have the threat of the Ukraine war, transatlantic tensions and domestic worries over the far-right to tackle.
