US ambassador to Germany should be sent home over NATO spending row: Bundestag deputy speaker

[DonViejo]

Source: Politico-Europe



The top U.S. diplomat in Germany has been no stranger to stirring up controversy.

By LAURENZ GEHRKE 3/19/19, 12:45 PM CET Updated 3/19/19, 12:52 PM CET

The deputy speaker of Germany's Bundestag has called for U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell to be sent home after he criticized Germany over its planned NATO spending.

Wolfgang Kubicki said Germany's foreign minister "should declare Richard Grenell persona non grata immediately," Der Spiegel reported him as telling AFP Tuesday.

Kubicki, who is also vice president of the Free Democratic Party, demanded the U.S. diplomat's expulsion after Grenell criticized the budget of Germany's finance minister and said it was unacceptable that Germany was on track to miss a NATO defense spending target.

According to Germany's latest budget plan, defense spending is set to rise to 1.37 percent of GDP next year but then decline in the medium term. NATO member states are meant to be aiming to spend at least 2 percent of GDP on defense by 2024 — a particular bugbear of U.S. President Donald Trump, who wants to see European allies pick up more of NATO's costs.

Read more: https://www.politico.eu/article/us-ambassador-to-germany-should-be-sent-home-over-nato-spending-row-bundestag-deputy-speaker-richard-grenell-kubicki-budget-defense-spending/

[machoneman]

1. Do it! Please, please, please....just do it!

Driving Trump crazy!

[ewagner]

2. +1

[lark]

3. They are twisting the real story.

The wanting NATO members to pay more for their own defense and make NATO stronger is not at all what he's aiming for. He's using this as a wedge to make them choose between their own internal financial needs to care for their people vs. putting more money into the defense market. He knows they will choose the social needs of their people and he is using this to drive a wedge between us and them and eventually destroy the organization by refusing to help when Russia attacks other countries like Ukraine or Montenegro or one of the Baltic states. This is one of the main reasons PUtin put him in office. They are already twisting Slovenia's arm in many ways from what I saw when I was there last year. Our guide said it's very split in the country with most wanting Russia to leave them alone and quit trying to stop their growth but some still supporting Mother Russia.

[SharonClark]

4. I've visited several post-Yugoslavian countries so your comment interests me

Is 'they' the US?
Is 'he' the US Ambassador?
Is 'him' Trump?
Who is twisting Slovenia's arm? Russia? US?

Thanks for the assist.

[lark]

5. Sorry still not all the way back from my concussion.

"They" is the people that wrote the German magazine article referred to in the OP. "He" and "him" is drumpf. Russia is twisting Slovenia's arm. There's an important statue installed in Slovenia by Stalin and the title was 'Spirit of Communist Workers" (or something close) and it showed Russia military and Slovenian military defeating Nazis. The people of Slovenia didn't like the Russian solider being included, they thought Russia was taking credit for Slovenia's fighting and winning so first they removed the plaque. They were planning on destroying the Russian solider, but Russia's ambassador saw this and made them stop. Russia said the Russian solider stayed where it was and Slovenia would NOT be allowed to remove him. They put soldiers around the statue for quite some time to protect it for their own vanity. So the Slovenians decided if they couldn't remove him they still wanted something more festive in the middle of their most important square (platz?) and painted it in bright neon colors to highlight their resistance to Russian interference in their country. Russia is very unhappy with Slovenia and vice versa, from what our Slovenian guide told us.