German foreign minister skeptical on defense spending boost

“This would be a defense supremacy, a military supremacy in Europe,” he said during a visit to the Estonian capital of Tallinn. “I think our neighbors wouldn’t like to see this in 10 to 15 years.”

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NATO has for years urged members to increase defense spending to reach targets, and the issue has been seized upon recently by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Merkel has said Germany is committed to the 2 percent goal, but Gabriel has sought to make defense spending an election-year issue, and has suggested that German commitments to development aid and humanitarian moves _ such as taking in nearly 900,000 asylum seekers in 2015 _ should be part of the calculation.

Estonia is one of a handful NATO members meeting the defense spending target, though the 2.2 percent of GDP expenditure from the tiny nation equates to around 477 million euros, far less than the 35.1 billion euros ($38 billion) that Germany spent last year.

Like its Baltic neighbors Latvia and Lithuania, Estonia is increasingly worried over what it says is Russia’s aggressive and reckless military behavior in the region. That prompted it to boost this year’s defense budget by a record 28 million euros including extra spending for hosting NATO troops in the country.

Germany is a lead nation in NATO’s effort to reassure the Baltics, commanding a brigade that has recently been stationed in Lithuania. Britain commands a similar multi-national brigade in Estonia, while Canada has command of one in Latvia and the United States another in Poland.