Germany’s weapons stocks, already down due to decades of underinvestment, have depleted even further because of weapons supply to Ukraine as the nation defends itself from the Russian onslaught.
So far, Berlin has donated three Patriot air defence units to Kyiv, more than any other country, bringing down the number of Patriot systems in Germany to nine.
Germany’s fractious coalition of left-leaning Social Democrats, pro-business liberals and ecologist Greens has struggled to comply with NATO’s spending target due to self-imposed rules that limit the amount of state borrowing they can take on.
Although military aid to Ukraine will be cut, Germany will comply with the NATO target of spending 2% of GDP on defence in 2025, with a total of 75.3 billion euros.
Days after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a “Zeitenwende” – German for historic turning point – with a 100 billion euro special fund to bring the military up to speed.
From this special fund, there will be 22.0 billion euros more for defence, plus 53.3 billion euros in the regular budget, still less than that sought by Defence Minister Boris Pistorius.
The defence budget is set to receive a meagre 1.3 billion euros more than in 2024, far below the 6.7 billion euros requested by Pistorius.
As ever-increasing annual operating costs outpace this rise, the defence ministry is being forced to cut ammunition orders for 2025 by more than half, reduce procurement by 260 million euros and research and development by over 200 million euros.
The budget for 2025 comes with the mid-term financial planning until 2028, the year when the armed forces’ special fund to meet NATO’s minimum spending goals is due to run out and 80 billion will be needed for defence, as noted in the financial plan.
In 2028, there is a gap of 39 billion euros in the regular budget, of which 28 billion euros are needed to comply with the NATO target without the special fund, sources from the finance ministry said.
“The 80 billion euros that have been put on display for 2028 simply do not exist,” said Ingo Gaedechens, member of the parliament’s budget committee from the conservative opposition party CDU. “The coalition is not even trying to cover this up but are openly admitting it.” Decisions on how the hole will be plugged are not likely to be taken until after the elections that are scheduled to take place next year.
(With inputs from Reuters)
