German defence minister told not to expect additional budget boost

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany Finance Minister Christian Lindner has warned the country's Defence Minister that there will be no additional money to modernise the armed forces beyond what the coalition government has already agreed.

The budget agreed this month had disappointed Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, who is in charge of efforts to reverse years of neglect and bolster Germany's defences in response to Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

But the Social Democrat minister's complaints were unjustified, Lindner said in an interview to be aired on ARD public television on Sunday.

"Mr Pistorius has a 100 billion euro ($108.6 billion) special fund for modernising the armed forces; something none of his predecessors had," Lindner said. "You can work with that, but you also have to make do with it."

Lindner, leader of the liberal Free Democrats, sees his role in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's fractious three-party coalition as enforcing fiscal rigour against the protests of the Social Democrats and Greens.

Germany has by far the lowest debt to GDP ratio in the G7 group of large advanced economies, but the International Monetary Fund this week said that low levels of public infrastructure investment were among the main causes of Germany's sluggish growth.

($1 = 0.9211 euros)

(Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Editing by David Goodman)