Wadephul criticizes France’s defense spending

Foreign Minister expresses criticism

Wadephul takes on Macron

Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul openly criticizes France’s arms policy. It is not the only disagreement between Berlin and Paris.

Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul (CDU) has called on the European NATO partners to make greater efforts in defense spending and particularly criticized French spending as “inadequate”. “We also have to implement the five percent,” said Wadephul on Deutschlandfunk on Monday, referring to the NATO member states’ obligation to spend five percent of their respective gross domestic product (GDP) on defense.

French President Emmanuel Macron “always correctly speaks of our pursuit of European sovereignty,” said Wadephul. Anyone who speaks about it must act accordingly in their own country. “Unfortunately, efforts in the French Republic to achieve this have so far been insufficient.”

Now Wadephul is increasing defense spending. According to the CDU politician, Germany is implementing the five percent target. “Our budgets and our medium-term financial planning allow for this.” With regard to “our neighboring states, our allies,” he stated: “There is still room for improvement.” This needs to be talked about in Europe.

France is also called upon “to do what we are doing here, with difficult discussions, to bring about the ability to invest, to take one or two austerity measures in the social area, and to make savings in other areas too, in order to have room for the centrally important goal of Europe’s defense capability.”

This request goes to all European countries, emphasized Wadephul. There needs to be “very open, very honest discussions about this in our European family.” “Anyone who talks about independence from the USA today must first do their homework at home; Europe still has a lot of work to do,” the Foreign Minister stated.