German finance minister says defence budget needs to rise

Germany's defence budget will need to increase "in the coming years", Finance Minister Christian Lindner said in an interview with a Sunday newspaper.

Lindner on Thursday delayed presenting the first draft of the budget, but is expected to make public his plans for Europe's biggest economy on Wednesday, and will also outline financial planning through to 2027.

In an interview with Welt am Sonntag, which was circulated in advance on Saturday, he said he was open to increasing defence spending but said discussions would be challenging as a decade of low interest rates and rising government revenues has come to an end.

"The situation we are now facing in budget planning for 2024 cannot be compared with any budget deliberations in the past ten years," Lindner said.

"The reality is now different. For the first time in more than a decade, we have to consolidate," he said.

But despite the need for fiscal tightening, he favoured increasing defence spending. "It is necessary for the defence budget to increase in the coming years," Lindner said.

"Especially if outflows from the special programme for the German armed forces can no longer help achieve the 2% target," he said, without giving specific figures.