German Finance Minister Christian Lindner has laid out a plan for the country to increase defence funding in coming years and continuously meet the NATO alliance's spending targets in an interview with dpa.
Lindner said money from a €100 billion ($107 billion) special defence fund created in 2022 in the wake of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine would help boost spending in the coming years.
The NATO alliance has called on all member countries to spend at least 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) each year on defence.
The German special fund is expected to last until 2027.
Lindner denied media reports that Germany might fall short of the target next year, and reiterated that Germany would meet the 2% spending target "in all coming years."
He said ministry officials and budget specialists at the Finance Ministry had seen no evidence to suggest otherwise.
After 2028, Lindner told dpa that Germany could shift future debt repayment plans in order to add up to €9 billion ($9.7 billion) in annual defence spending to the budget.
Lindner told dpa in an interview that fiscal discipline by the German government should bring total outstanding public debt below 60% of gross domestic product (GDP), a ratio recommended by the European Union in the Maastricht Treaty.
That would allow the government to pump more money into defence spending instead of using it to pay off about €300 billion in debt borrowed between 2020 and 2023 to respond to the coronavirus pandemic as well as the fallout from Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the resulting energy crisis.
