2024-03-12 03:35:26
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned other members of the government that next year the Bundeswehr will lack up to €6 billion. Even achieving the NATO target for military spending of 2% of GDP may be in question, the Bild newspaper reported, Day.Az reports with reference to TASS .
According to the publication, for 2025, the Ministry of Finance under the leadership of Christian Lindner provided for military expenditures in the amount of €52 billion. Experts from the Ministry of Defense made calculations and came to a “terrifying conclusion”: in order to achieve the NATO target of 2% of GDP next year, allocations for military needs are needed increase by €4.5-6.0 billion.
At the same time, the financial “hole” in it is constantly growing, as is the number of projects for which there are not enough funds. Bild provides some examples. The reconstruction of the airfield in Büchel (Rhineland-Palatinate) for F-35 fighters will require an additional €700 million. Where to get them from is still unknown. The same applies to the purchase of new wheeled armored personnel carriers and Eurofighter aircraft. The costs of deploying a Bundeswehr brigade in Lithuania are estimated at at least €5 billion. They have not yet been taken into account in budget planning.
According to the newspaper, Pistorius informed Chancellor Olaf Scholz about the difficult financial situation. The Ministry of Defense is currently negotiating with the Ministry of Finance to provide additional funding, but so far to no avail. According to Bild, even without the needs of the Bundeswehr, the budget for 2025 will have a shortfall of €25 billion. Lindner proposed financing the army’s needs by cutting some social spending, but Scholz made it clear that the NATO target of 2% of GDP should be achieved without cutting social payments
Germany intends to spend $73.41 billion on defense this year, which will amount to 2.01% of projected GDP. Scholz previously promised that the country would henceforth annually comply with the NATO criterion.
The goal of bringing their military spending to 2% of GDP was set by NATO countries at a summit in Wales in September 2014, citing the “Russian threat” in connection with the reunification of Crimea with the Russian Federation. In July 2023, at the summit in Vilnius, it was decided that 2% of GDP should not become the target, but the minimum level of defense spending for the alliance states.
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