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FDP rejects proposed use of army inside Germany

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FDP rejects proposed use of army inside Germany
Photo: DPA

The Free Democratic Party, junior partner in Germany's ruling coalition, has rejected the Interior Minister's proposal for a constitutional change to enable the army to be deployed within Germany to fight terrorism.

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"The FDP parliamentarians will not be a part of changing the Basic Law to allow the internal use of the Bundeswehr," Gisela Piltz, deputy head of the FDP's parliamentary faction, said on Saturday.

"Fighting terrorism is and will remain the police's job," she added, saying that blending the police and the military would be unacceptable to her party.

Interior minister Hans-Peter Friedrich, of the conservative Christian Social Union, had said that the police's resources were not adequate for certain terrorist threat situations. "In such cases we should have the option of mobilizing the armed forces," he told the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper.

In response, Piltz called on the minister to work on issues that had been agreed in the coalition contract, and not to "throw smoke bombs."

She said Friedrich should, for instance, come up with a concept for the country's airports and borders, "so that doubled responsibilities of customs officers and the federal police could be resolved, and internal security resources stopped being wasted."

Friedrich was probably not surprised by the FDP's reaction – he had already told the Hamburger Abendblatt that he didn't currently have the required parliamentary majority for such a constitutional change.

DAPD/bk

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