Germany’s would-be next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, won lawmakers’ approval Tuesday for ambitious plans to loosen the nation’s strict debt rules for higher defense spending as doubts mount about the strength of the trans-Atlantic alliance,

Germany’s would-be next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, is asking lawmakers to allow the country to put “whatever it takes” into defense and to authorize an enormous fund for investment in its creaking in

Germany's parliament approved plans for a massive spending surge on Tuesday, throwing off decades of fiscal conservatism in hopes of reviving economic growth and scaling up military spending for a new era of European collective defence.