Currently, Germany is at just 45 billion USD military spending.
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Ms Merkel accused SPD leaders of being “not reliable” for going back on a government decision that they endorsed three years ago as junior coalition partners to her conservative Christian Democrat-led bloc.
In a television and radio interview, she pledged to stick to the target to raise spending towards the agreed Nato goal of 2 per cent of gross domestic product by 2024.
Her comments follow a direct assault on the pledge last week by Mr Schulz who, together with SPD colleague Thomas Oppermann, wrote in a newspaper column that the target “is not only unrealistic — it is simply the wrong goal”.
Sigmar Gabriel, the SPD foreign minister and Ms Merkel’s deputy chancellor, went further and condemned the 2 per cent target as “a really mad idea”.