Friday

29th Mar 2024

Ticker

Merkel pledges to boost defence spending

Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday it was important for Germany to boost military spending. Reaching Nato's target of two percent of GDP was "not completely beyond the imagination," she told military officers in Berlin on the eve of the budget debate in Germany's parliament. Germany spent about €37bn on defence in 2017 — the ninth-highest defence budget in the world.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Get the EU news that really matters

Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

Opinion

EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania

Among the largest sources of financing for energy transition of central and eastern European countries, the €60bn Modernisation Fund remains far from the public eye. And perhaps that's one reason it is often used for financing fossil gas projects.

'Swiftly dial back' interest rates, ECB told

Italian central banker Piero Cipollone in his first monetary policy speech since joining the ECB's board in November, said that the bank should be ready to "swiftly dial back our restrictive monetary policy stance."

Join EUobserver

EU news that matters

Join us