WadePhul scares the coalition at NATO meetings with a five percent destination

A radiant morning in Belek on the Turkish Riviera, pines around the conference center weigh themselves in the Mediterranean breeze, the new German Foreign Minister makes a good face a chaotic world situation. Also for confusion in Berlin, to which Johann WadePhul himself contributed a little.

He dropped the news of this morning like a thought at the end of his press statement. US President Donald Trump had called for NATO-allied to raise defense spending to five percent. “We follow him there.” Are the Americans satisfied with it? WadePhul: “I assume that the proposal is coordinated with the US side.”

Five percent of the gross domestic product as the goal for the German military budget? Most recently, the federal government regularly had great need to achieve the previous NATO goal of two percent, over three or three and a half percent is being discussed-but five?

Anyone who in Antalya, where the Foreign Minister of the NATO countries meet for informal exchange, assumes that WadePhul’s statement is coordinated with Berlin-who is wrong. There his sentences provide a real bang of bang minutes later.

The proposal is of course not discussed with the man, the qua job description is responsible for the military budget: Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD). Oh, and neither with Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil (SPD), who would present his plans for the Ministry of Finance this morning in the Bundestag. He would have liked to have learned earlier that he should apparently provide more than 200 billion for the defense budget, which would also make up around 40 percent of the total budget. And not only he, because the idea is obviously not coordinated with the boss. Friedrich Merz knows nothing. “For the Federal Chancellor, what is in the coalition agreement applies,” says government districts.

And so-after the pension initiative by Minister of Labor Bärbel Bas at the weekend-Wabern Wabern for the second time this week well-known traffic light vibes through the capital.

The SPD foreign politician Ralf Stegner is outraged: “It would be smooth insanity if we landed with such amounts.” Stegner, who is also an disarmament spokesman for his faction, admits that Germany has a need to catch up with defense spending. “We have to do more, that’s clear.” But he considered five percent to be “wrong”.

“In the future, Europe will have to ensure its own security,” says SPD foreign politician Adis Ahmetovic. “I advise everyone that nobody now pretended alone. The budget will have to be clarified together in the alliance. In addition, I would like to remind the Foreign Minister WadePhul of the coalition agreement.”

The sun shines on the Turkish Riviera. Here are the worries, larger ones. And in general, the five percent, the calf phulic thinks, are not pure military spending. Rather, in addition to the 3.5 percent for purely military purposes such as tanks and ammunition, another 1.5 percent should also count for security expenses in the broader sense. The suggestion remains expensive either way.

Johann WadePhul has had a short night. Shortly before midnight, he rose from the Air Force Airbus. Germany’s chief diplomat had already missed the welcome evening dinner with his ministerial colleagues in the shade of an ancient apollot temple. The official ministerial idea in the Bundestag goes before a diplomat dinner with string quartet.

For WADEPHUL, Turkey went directly to the difficult questions in Turkey without a feel -good program. The first appointment of his trip was the most important – and probably also delicate. The meeting with his US colleague Marco Rubio, early at 8.30 a.m., in the Golfhotel Cornelia Diamond.

The press was not there. But you can imagine that as a kind of delicate scanning, on two levels. The personal, of course: WadePhul has already called Rubio on the phone, but the two have never met. Now it is a matter of meeting the right tone in direct conversation – with the man who has just accused Germany of the “hidden tyranny”, after the AfD has been classified by the constitutional protection.

But the strategic question was even more central for WADEPHUL: Are the United States still reliably alongside Europe and Ukraine? And, if so, what do Germany and Europe have to do so that it stays that way? The new man will also have hoped for this in the Federal Foreign Office of Rubio. And in return, WadePhul felt encouraged to signal a bit of German accommodation.

What you need to know: by “proposal” WadePhul says the idea of ​​NATO general secretary Mark Rutte, which is supposed to help to close the gap between the alliance tired USA and that of their collateral but delayed NATO partners.

The Rutte plan can be briefly put on the following formula: 3.5 percent for defense plus 1.5 percent for infrastructure five percent. To fulfill this goal by 2032, the Europeans and Canada will commit themselves to the Haag at the NATO summit next month. In order to give Trump a victory that is supposed to help to secure the US commitments for the protection of Europe in the long term. And the US support for Ukraine is right.

After the meeting with Rubio, WadePhul states with demonstrative confidence: “We have been able to determine an almost complete agreement in all important questions, not only NATO, but also regarding the global political situation.” The German Foreign Minister says that there is a great determination in Europe to decide further sanctions against Russia. “And I assume that it will also be considered in the United States.”

Does the calculation work? Will the Trump government increase the pressure on Russia together with the other NATO partners? Well, where Putin has again undermined the demands of the West to get the negotiating table. Where President Trump – so hope at least in Berlin, Warsaw, Paris and London – has to see that his charm offensive does not catch Putin. That Russia takes without giving. That the war will continue when it comes to Moscow’s ideas.

This hope are forged here in Belek behind closed doors.