As of: March 13, 2024, 4:40 p.m
By: Franziska Schwarz
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Andrzej Duda (l.) visiting the USA, here in the Capitol © Saul Loeb/AFP
Andrzej Duda is urging Joe Biden to increase NATO defense spending - on Friday he will meet Olaf Scholz in Berlin.
Washington, DC - Poland's President Andrzej Duda insisted at a meeting with US President Joe Biden that NATO commits its members to higher defense spending in the future.
He said that it was necessary for all alliance members to “increase this from two to three percent of gross domestic product”.
The current target is two percent.
Duda said this would have been appropriate ten years ago.
But now we need more, he said, referring to the war in Ukraine.
Poland itself spent 3.9 percent of its gross domestic product on armaments last year.
Poland feels threatened by Russia and is currently rearming massively.
Taurus debate: Scholz, Macron and Tusk talk about aid to Ukraine in Berlin
NATO member countries have actually committed to investing two percent of their economic output in defense - Germany did not achieve this goal for many years.
But this year it will be fulfilled.
Tusk is also expected in Berlin on Friday: After severe tensions in German-French relations over Ukraine policy, he and Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), French President Emmanuel Macron and he are meeting there.
There had recently been open differences of opinion between Berlin and Paris on Ukraine policy.
Macron and Scholz criticized each other in public several times - without calling each other by name, but with sharp words.
France's President accuses the Chancellor of his refusal to deliver Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine.
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Scholz had previously emphasized several times with regard to France that Germany provides the majority of military aid to Ukraine within Europe and other countries provide significantly less.
The dispute between Macron and Scholz came to a head after a Ukraine conference at the end of February.
At that time, Macron indirectly accused the Germans of initially only wanting to deliver “sleeping bags and helmets” to Ukraine.
Macron also explicitly said that he did not rule out sending Western ground troops to Ukraine.
(dpa/AFP/frs)