German Chancellor Angela Merkel gestures as she speaks at the opening of the 2019 Internet Governance Forum in Berlin, Germany, November 26, 2019. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

BERLIN (Reuters) - Maintaining the NATO defence alliance is of utmost importance to Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday after French President Emmanuel Macron said NATO was “experiencing brain death”.

“Maintaining NATO today is even more in our very own interests as it was in the Cold War - or at least as important as it was in the Cold War,” Merkel told lawmakers in parliament.

“Because, and the foreign minister said this yesterday, Europe currently cannot defend itself on its own,” she said.