Germany has spent months promoting a breakthrough shift to a more muscular military policy. Now the country finally has a spending plan to make it happen.
Prime Minister Olaf Scholz first German so-called Zeitenwende, Or a historic turning point, late Sunday political leaders have approved a large military modernization fund of € 100 billion, a key pillar of the new policy.
Monetary infusions outside Germany’s normal budget provide rapid equipment upgrades for chronically underfunded German troops, with Berlin playing a more important role within the NATO and EU military alliances. The purpose is to help you draw a path for you.
“Germany will now make a significant contribution to Europe’s security … it will correspond to its size,” Scholz arrived at the EU summit in Brussels on Monday.
Germany, the EU’s largest economy and most populous country, has faced severe criticism since Russia invaded Ukraine for holding back on sending certain weapons to support Kyiv. I am. Berlin argued that his army, the Bundeswehr, lacked important military equipment and could not afford it any further. Heavy weapons such as tanks and howitzers. I plan to send some of them to Ukraine.
While modern plans can help address these shortcomings, they are designed to work for years and things cannot change immediately. And some hawkish voices in Germany argue that the country must go further.
Here are five things you need to know about Germany’s newly passed military investment funds, the so-called military investment funds. Sonder vermögen..
1) Germany will now (almost) meet NATO’s spending targets
With an injection of 100 billion euros, Germany’s annual military spending will increase from about 50 billion euros to an average of 70 billion euros in five years. This puts Germany in line with NATO’s goal of spending 2% of its economic production on defense. This is a pledge that Berlin has so far violated blatantly.
But the agreement reached on Sunday night is not enough to enshrine the 2 percent target of the German Constitution. Instead, he states that he needs to reach the “multi-year average” benchmark. That is, Germany could spend more than 2% on large military investments, but less in other years.
Critics like Rudiger Wolff, the former Secretary of State of the Wehrmacht, say that is not enough.
At a hearing in the German parliament last month, Wolff said that € 100 billion should be used solely to address the gap between modernization needs and equipment, and Germany has a regular annual defense budget of 50 billion. He argued that the 2% target should be achieved by further increasing from the euro. To 70 billion euros.
He argued that this approach was the only way for the Bundeswehr to “provide permanently necessary financial resources” to carry out its mission “in width and depth” within NATO.
2) Needed some budget fudge
However, raising the country’s regular defense budget is a delicate theme in Germany, which has long adhered to strict debt rules.
In Germany’s current coalition, Treasury Minister Christian Lindner, a member of the financially conservative Free Democratic Party (FDP), has been suspended for two years due to the corona virus in a constitutional restraint rule. We hope to resume a “debt brake” in the country. Pandemic.
This is the main reason why € 100 billion was established as a special fund. This avoids large investments being counted as part of the country’s regular budget and is exempt from default.
To do so, it is necessary to enshrine a special fund in the German Constitution. This is a move that requires a majority of two-thirds in the German Parliament. That meant that the Schortz coalition needed to reach an agreement on money with the central right-wing opposition, which required weeks of negotiations.
The special fund will be exhausted after five years, so in order for Germany to continue to reach its 2% NATO spending target without special monetary injections, it will increase its regular defense budget to at least 70 billion euros by then. The idea is that you need to. However, it remains unclear how Lindner’s disciplined fiscal planning and debt braking can be used to coordinate such budget increases.
But given that Germany will hold another general election in just over three years, there may be a new government that has to worry about such questions before the special endowment runs out. You can decide to establish yet another special military fund at any time.
Other EU countries, which have inferior financial market borrowing conditions and high debt, can only dream of such luxury. Many countries want the EU to exempt military upgrades from EU’s own strict fiscal rules — a request rejected by the German government, especially Lindner.
3) New jets, ships and tanks in progress
The official list of German military investments is secret, but there is one huge project published by the government. It’s the purchase of a US F-35 stealth fighter that seems to replace the tornado fighter decades ago. In particular, these tech jets should be able to carry US nuclear weapons in the worst case. There are new concerns as the Vladimir saber rattles about Russia’s nuclear weapons.
The German government also said it would like to improve the general equipment of the military, which has long suffered from a laundry list of shortcomings such as lost Google and rifles at night, lack of protective vests, and flaws in training facilities.
“I have to tell you that there are horrific flaws in the areas of equipment and combat preparation,” said Eva Högl, a German parliamentary member who defends both the ombudsman and military personnel.
Högl gave an example in the April debate. The German Navy’s elite diving unit in Eckernförde “has not had a working swimming hole for more than a decade.”
The deal on Sunday stipulates that new funds should be used to invest in the Bundeswehr and will receive new orders for new tanks and ammunition among German defense companies like Rheinmetall. Expectations are rising. Meanwhile, shipyards in northern Germany want to build five new corvettes, more frigates, and some fighting craft, as reported by the public broadcaster NDR. Currently, about 60% of German helicopters cannot fly. In other words, investment is also urgently needed.
However, one challenge is to ensure that investments are made in a timely manner. German military procurement offices have a reputation for being slow and bureaucratic. Högl warned that these problems were “more and more and not a few.”
4) Ukraine will not benefit immediately,
Given that € 100 billion will be spent in five years, it is unlikely that Germany will soon increase the number of tanks and artillery donated to Ukraine.
But the two tanks Ukraine demanded from Germany for months, the Leopard main battle tank and the Marder infantry fighting vehicle, came from defense companies, not from the national army. These companies say they have discontinued and sold these tank models.
Schortz has so far refused to give companies export licenses for these tanks, and is concerned that the move could escalate the war and target Germany.
5) German critics will still want to see the action
The Schorz administration has been hit internationally in recent months by being too hesitant to provide military aid to Ukraine. Schortz’s pledge to make Germany a more prominent European military force is welcomed in many EU capitals, especially in the east, but many countries see if these words are followed by a certificate. Waiting for
In that respect, Schortz’s track record to date is rather thin.
During his speech at Parliament on Wednesday morning, the Prime Minister has another opportunity to present a more broader plan for the Special Fund and military assistance to Ukraine. The special fund will be adopted by Congress as early as this Friday.
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