Germany's Greens vowed to block plans by likely next chancellor Friedrich Merz for a massive increase in state borrowing to revamp the military and revive growth but forwarded rival proposals on Monday in a bid for compromise.

The Greens vow to foil the chancellor-in-waiting’s historic plan to invest big in defense and infrastructure. But it may just be a negotiating gambit.

German Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz is open to making concessions to the Greens to secure support for constitutional changes that would unleash hundreds of billions of euros in defense and infrastructure spending.