Germany's government and conservative opposition have agreed a deal that will release 100 billion euros ($107 billion) to modernise the army in the face of the Russian threat.
BERLIN - Germany's government and conservative opposition have agreed a deal that will release 100 billion euros to modernise the army in the face of the Russian threat.
Three days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged a special budget of 100 billion euros to rearm the German military and modernise its outdated equipment over the next few years. The agreement will allow Berlin to achieve NATO's target of spending 2.0 percent of GDP on defence "on average over several years", according to the text of the agreement obtained by AFP.For that it was necessary to circumvent the "debt brake" rule enshrined in the constitution, which caps government borrowing.
Since the end of the Cold War, Germany has significantly reduced the size of its army, from around 500,000 in 1990 to just 200,000 today.
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