BERLIN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th November, 2019) German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday that raising military spending to 2 percent of the industrial output by 2031 was ambitious but realistic.
"It is an ambitious but also realistic goal to say that we want to reach it by 2031," she said in Germany's Leipzig, standing alongside NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg.
Merkel admitted that Germany was not one of the top contributors, but was debating the budget for the next year, in which the military spending would be increased. It aims to reach the 1.5 percent goal by 2024.
NATO recommends that member states spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, but only seven countries have achieved that goal as of March 2019, according to the bloc's annual report.
