Berlin, Germany – Ahead of the NATO summit, a prominent German politician has called for a stronger German presence abroad, urging the country to offer its NATO partners a more proactive military presence beyond Lithuania.
Jürgen Hardt, the foreign policy spokesperson of the CDU’s parliamentary group, argued in an op-ed for the Handelsblatt that Germany’s current defense budget of 3.5 percent of its GDP, combined with an additional 1.5 percent for infrastructure, would be bolstered by a qualitative component, enhancing the country’s deterrent power.
Hardt also emphasized the need for a new focus on Germany’s intelligence agencies, stating that while they benefit from a larger budget, they require legislative frameworks and clear, flexible mandates to develop capabilities in cyber defense, hybrid threat recognition and preventive analysis.
Furthermore, the CDU politician proposed a stronger integration of the country’s federal states and municipalities into the federal government’s security strategy. “Cyber incidents, border security and crisis management significantly affect state authorities” Hardt said, adding that the National Security Council must play a crucial role in networking these entities. Hardt criticized the fact that the states were left out of the creation of the National Security Strategy, a recurring issue in his view.