British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will sign a new Anglo-German treaty in London on Thursday that includes a commitment to help each other in the event of an armed attack.
Bloomberg writes, citing a senior German official, that the mutual defence commitments are a response to both an increasingly aggressive Russia and growing concerns among European allies about US allegiance to NATO under President Donald Trump.
At the same time, the official said, it should not replace the principle of collective defence that underpins NATO’s founding treaty, known as Article 5.
For Germany, the defence element is particularly important because Britain is one of Europe’s two nuclear powers, along with France. Germany does not possess its own nuclear warheads, but benefits from the defence umbrella that the US has extended over the continent.
Nuclear weapons are not explicitly mentioned in the new treaty, the German official said.
Starmer and Merz will also commit to deliver a new long-range missile system, the Deep Precision Strike, within the next decade, according to a statement from Starmer’s office. It will have a range of more than 2,000 kilometres (1,240 miles) and will help bolster the British and European defence sectors through “significant industrial investment”.
Starmer and Merz’s predecessor, Social Democrat Olaf Scholz, laid the groundwork for the pact at a meeting last August in Berlin, with the British prime minister describing it as “part of a wider reset based on a new spirit of co-operation”.
Conservative leader Mertz made clear his regret over Britain’s exit from the European Union and pledged to join forces with Starmer to confront challenges such as Donald Trump’s trade offensive and the war in Ukraine. His visit to London came a week after French President Emmanuel Macron made the first state visit by a European leader to the UK since Brexit.