UK and Germany to sign mutual defense agreement in case of attack, - Bloomberg
On July 17, the British Prime Minister and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will sign a defense treaty on mutual assistance in the event of an armed attack, as well as cooperation in the defense, economic, and migration spheres.
According to Censor.NET, Bloomberg reports.
According to the sources, the commitment to mutual defense was a response to both the growing military threat from Russia and European allies' concerns about the reliability of the US defense commitments within NATO under Donald Trump's presidency.
A German government source emphasized that the new treaty is not a replacement for the principle of collective defense underlying NATO's founding treaty, known as Article 5.
The UK is one of Europe's two nuclear powers, along with France, while Germany has no nuclear weapons of its own and relies on the US "nuclear umbrella." At the same time, according to a Bloomberg source, the new agreement does not explicitly mention nuclear weapons.
As part of the agreement, the parties also undertake to implement a joint program to create a new long-range Deep Precision Strike missile system capable of hitting targets at a distance of more than 2,000 kilometers over the next decade.
The publication notes that the signing of the defense agreement was the result of lengthy negotiations that began in August 2024 during Starmer's visit to Berlin. At the time, the prime minister called the upcoming agreement "part of a broader reset based on a new spirit of cooperation."
