German Chancellor Friedrich Merz visited Lithuania to mark the first permanent deployment of foreign troops from Berlin to Europe since World War II, as he called on allies to step up their efforts to bolster European defenses against a hostile Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As crowds waved Lithuanian, German and Ukrainian flags, Merz and his Defense Minister, Boris Pistorius, attended a ceremony to officially launch the formation of an armored brigade designed to protect NATO\u2019s eastern flank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new heavy combat unit, the 45th Armored Brigade, will consist of 4,800 German soldiers and 200 civilian personnel and was announced in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 – but also to Donald Trump’s messages to Europe that he “will no longer tolerate an unbalanced relationship that encourages dependence” – and is scheduled to reach full operational capability by 2027.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe security of our Baltic allies is ours too\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTogether with our partners, we are determined to defend the territory of the Alliance against any attack. The security of our Baltic allies is ours too,\u201d Merz stressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The deployment, unprecedented for the Bundeswehr (German armed forces), is aimed at strengthening the defense of Lithuania and the other Baltic republics \u2013 Estonia and Latvia \u2013 former Soviet states that have become members of NATO and the EU and fear a Russian attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At a press conference in Vilnius, with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, Friedrich Merz stated that Russia’s “aggressive revisionism”, which seeks to redraw the European map, poses serious risks to the security of the entire continent, not just Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cUnited as Europeans, but when possible we play as a team and with the US\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mertz, the first German chancellor to have served in the Bundeswehr, said that \u201cwe stand firmly with Ukraine, but we also stand united as Europeans as a whole and we play, whenever possible, as a team with the US.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In preparation for next month\u2019s NATO summit in The Hague, he stressed that the Alliance must \u201csteadily strengthen European defense capabilities and our defense industry must expand its capabilities \u2013 it must produce more for Europe and produce more in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gitanas Nauseda thanked Merz for Germany\u2019s support for the new combat unit, which was set up at the request of Lithuania, which with its 2.9 million inhabitants borders the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad between Poland and Lithuania, as well as Belarus, a close ally of Moscow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe understand the threat and believe we can confront it with our allies,\u201d she said, noting that Lithuania plans to meet NATO\u2019s new goal of spending 5% of its gross domestic product on defense by next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur friends and partners demand this of us.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n For his part, Merz said that Germany, as Europe\u2019s largest economy, would achieve the same benchmark by 2032, based on a calculation of 3.5% of GDP for military procurement and 1.5% for military-critical infrastructure, including roads, bridges and ports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Merz\u2019s rhetoric was welcomed by European partners as a continuation and extension of the \u201cZeitenwende\u201d (turning point) in defense policy established by his predecessor, Olaf Scholz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Scholz\u2019s center-left government created a special fund of 100 billion After spending billions of euros on defense equipment and finally meeting NATO\u2019s 2% of GDP defense spending commitment, Merz moved to release the constitutional \u201cbrake\u201d on debt to allow for much more military investment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In his first major speech to the German parliament last week, the chancellor promised, after years of \u201cneglect,\u201d to create \u201cEurope\u2019s strongest conventional army\u201d \u2013 Germany does not have its own nuclear weapons, by the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is befitting of Europe\u2019s most populous and economically strongest country. Our friends and partners expect this of us. Indeed, they practically demand it,\u201d he claimed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pistorius, who was also defense minister under Scholz, pledged when the new government took office this month that Germany would be \u201cready to defend every square inch of NATO territory\u201d and called the brigade in Lithuania a \u201cclear message to any potential adversary.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fears over Trump\u2019s moves<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Donald Trump has put intense pressure on other NATO members to increase their military spending, often singling out Germany in his accusations of European \u201ccheating\u201d at the expense of Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The US president has also troubled European allies with conflicting messages about his stance on the defense of Ukraine, while raising fears about the US commitment to NATO\u2019s mutual defense clause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Asked about reports that Trump could order the removal of US troops, Merz said he had \u201cno indication that the US will withdraw troops from Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The commitment to Baltic security has created several challenges for Germany, however, including finding enough personnel willing to serve there. In January, the Bundestag passed legislation to make this prospect more attractive, with more flexible working hours, increased benefits and overtime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" German Chancellor Friedrich Merz visited Lithuania to mark the first permanent deployment of foreign troops from Berlin to Europe since World War II, as…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[825,3],"tags":[3426,470,1437,489,3520,124],"class_list":["post-24448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe-geopolitical","category-geopolitical","tag-army","tag-europe","tag-friedrich-merz","tag-germany","tag-lithuania","tag-nato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24448"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24450,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24448\/revisions\/24450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}