Merz is caught in a defence spending trap of his own making

It’s not just in Britain that defence spending is top of the agenda. In Germany, too, the debate has turned to how the government can resurrect the country’s hollowed-out armed forces. Friedrich Merz, leader of the CDU and the man pipped to become the next chancellor, is driving the discussion. But unlike the grudgingly positive response Prime Minister Keir Starmer has received for pledging to increase UK defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP over the next two years, Merz is blundering his way into an almighty row – and possibly a constitutional crisis.

The final vote in Sunday’s federal election had not been fully counted before Merz, whose party won, declared on live television that his ‘absolute priority’ would be to strengthen Europe’s defences in response to what he called US President Donald Trump’s ‘indifference to the fate of Europe’. With the question of defence barely featuring in Germany’s two-month election campaign, this marked a key change for the CDU leader.