Germany rejects U.S. pressure for NATO spending increase

PanARMENIAN.Net - Calls by the Trump administration for Germany and other NATO partners to increase spending on defence have been rejected by Germany, BBC News said.

Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said it was "quite unrealistic" to believe Germany would spend 2% of its economic output on the military.

Other spending such as development aid, he said, should be taken into account.

However, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg echoed U.S. calls for member states to pay an equal proportion.

"Diplomacy, development aid, economic co-operation can be important to help stabilise a region," Mr Stoltenberg told a news conference after NATO talks in Brussels.

"We have international targets, guidelines, for development aid, 0.7% of GDP [gross domestic product], and then we have a NATO agreement on moving towards 2%. But those are two different things... It is not either development or security, it is development and security."

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told his counterparts in Brussels that by the next NATO summit - to be held in Brussels in less than eight weeks' time - there should be a commitment to produce clear plans to demonstrate how each country would meet its spending commitments.

"As President [Donald] Trump has made clear, it is no longer sustainable for the U.S. to maintain a disproportionate share of NATO's defence expenditures," he said.

According to NATO's 2016 annual report, only five countries met the 2% target - the U.S., the UK, Greece, Poland and Estonia. By contrast, Germany spent 1.2% on defence.

However, according to latest OECD available figures based on gross national income, Germany spent more in relative terms on overseas development aid in 2015 than the U.S. - 0.52% of GNI compared with 0.17% for America.