BRITISH TROOPS IN GERMANY

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 26985, 10 March 1953, Page 9

BRITISH TROOPS IN GERMANY

“ COSTS MAY FALL ON TAXPAYER”

(Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, March 8. • There is a strong probability that the British taxpayer will be called on to pay all the costs of maintaining the British troops in Germany during the coming financial year, says the Bonn correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian.”

The costs, which are estimated at 1,900,000,000 marks or £160,000,000, have so far been paid by the German Government as part of the total “occupation cost” Budget of between 7,000,000,000 and 8,0)0.000,000 marks. “A German financial delegation has gone to Paris, where it will take part m consultations with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation,” says the newspaper) “It must produce answers to the N.A.T.O; questionnaire designed to show what . financial contribution Western Germany can make to European defence in the coming N.A.T.O. year. The delegation carries firm instructions from the German Government that the maximum which can be raised in Western Germany for the defence purposes is about 8,600,000,000 marks.

'The delegation has also made it clear that al] this money must be spent on the German continent which will join in the common defence as soon as the European Defence Agreeratified - This means that the British and American Armies in Germany must be paid for frontheir own national Budgets.’ r