The German Bundeswehr is currently involved in two missions in the Sahel: the European Union's training mission (EUTM) and the UN's MINUSMA peacekeeping mission, both based in Mali.
The German government has proposed extending the two mandates by one year, to May 2021, as well as expanding the Bundeswehr's participation in the EU's training mission.
Failure to stop terrorism and advance the economic development of countries in the region will result in significant upheavals in the region if the governments there fail to work together," Jürgen Hardt, the parliamentary spokesman on foreign policy for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Merkel's conservative party, told DW in an interview.
The German government also has suggested expanding the advisory role that German troops play in Mali to include the other Sahel states of Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger and Chad.
'Half-hearted commitment'
Christoph Hoffmann, a development policy spokesman for the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP) parliamentary group in the Bundestag, criticized the government's current level involvement in the Sahel.
