"Putin was the wake-up call; Trump got us up" | Berlin Briefing Podcast – Live at #MSC2026

Jens Spahn

CDU/CSU Parliamentary Group Leader

We need to strengthen the European pillar within the transatlantic relationship and that is, by the way, what the US is asking for as well, but we should do it because of our own interest. And that is the NATO pillar, and there we already have started with the exemption of the debt brake in Germany, for example. Whatever it takes, we are doing. We are spending on defense, tripling and quadrupling our defense spending, the new military service. So, on NATO, the European pillar already is much stronger than it was five or 10 years before. Sometimes I say Putin was the wake-up call and Trump was the one who was getting us up, because one thing is to awaken, and the other thing is getting up and out of bed, and we obviously needed both, and now the NATO pillar, the European pillar, is stronger.

I still have much trust in the transatlantic relationship. Do I have trust in every second and every movement and every person? No. But, in general, I do have a fundamental trust. And both, by the way, can be true. That there is this special relationship and, at the same time, we are different. Europe is different from the US: historically, geographically, in many, many regards. And, at the same time, it’s a special relationship of the western normative world. And, by the way, we are very different within Europe, too. You know, we share common dreams, but we have different nightmares.

#dwnewsshorts

For more news go to

Follow DW on social media:

Für Videos in deutscher Sprache besuchen Sie