Photo: https://www.facebook.com/MerzCDU
Germany’s likely next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said he had secured the backing of the Green Party for his radical plan to boost defense and infrastructure spending, Deutsche Welle reported on Friday.
The conservative CDU/CSU bloc, which won last month’s election, and the Social Democrats, who are negotiating a new government, have proposed a deal that would ease Germany’s tight debt restrictions, allowing for increased defense spending and a EUR 500 billion “special fund” to be set aside for infrastructure reform.
“According to Merz, an incumbent German Chancellor Olaf Scholz confirmed that if this package is approved in parliament, he is ready to free up an additional EUR 3 billion to support Ukraine,” Deutsche Welle said.
“Germany is back,” Merz said in Berlin on Friday. “Germany is making a major contribution to the defense of freedom and peace in Europe,” the ezine quoted the likely new chancellor as saying. The Green Party’s support, which would give Merz the two-thirds majority needed to amend the constitution, is tantamount to him being able to seal the deal.