HOW PATHETIC IS EUROPE? This Pathetic:

German soldiers taking part in a four-week Nato exercise in Norway earlier this year had to leave after just 12 days because they had gone over their overtime limits, it has emerged.

Troops have complained to a parliamentary watchdog that they are being forced to spend entire days doing nothing under the new rules.

“It can’t be that we can’t fulfil our Nato obligations because of overtime,” Hans-Peter Bertels, the German parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces, told Bild am Sonntag newspaper.[..]

Under the latest reforms, in force since January, the military working week has been reduced to 41 hours and troops can no longer be paid for working overtime.

But wait, there’s more: “It sounds like the Germans have some work to do to get their defense affairs in order, no? And yet the government at the same time chose to release a grandiose white paper calling for the accelerated formation of a pan-EU army.”