When formulating the government's goals for the next two years, a conflict has flared up between finance minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) and defense minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU).
According to SPIEGEL information, the finance minister insisted that in the so-called mid-term review no clear commitment to increase defense spending to two percent of gross domestic product is anchored.
The dispute with the CDU colleague about cooked in the meantime so high that the Chancellery had to mediate.
The rift between finance and defense had begun because of a superficially harmless passage of the government paper on security policy and the financing of the Bundeswehr.
There, the ministry of CDU leader Kramp-Karrenbauer wanted to formulate as an outlook that the Federal Government feels committed to the NATO decision of 2014, to increase defense spending in the coming years to two percent of gross domestic product. Especially US President Donald Trump repeatedly insists on this goal.
Scholz intervened. In his ministry is considered an increase in the Bundeswehr budget to two percent of GDP for quite unrealistic, for this would have to increase the budget of the defense sector from just under 50 billion to well over 65 billion euros.
Already with former Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, Scholz had bravely struggled over whether or not Berlin should continue to promise Nato to fulfill the resolutions of 2014. In the end, Scholz won. Germany only pledged to reach a milestone by 2024 with 1.5 percent.
Vague sentences, no obligations
The quarrel with von der Leyen, to which Scholz used to maintain a cool relationship, is still badly remembered by the vice-chancellor. Therefore, his house was very vague in formulating the current government program. After the chancellery had acted as mediator, Scholz prevailed. The commitment rate was completely deleted.
Thus, in the final version, only the sentence, Berlin strives "within the budgetary possibilities" the 1.5 percent target by 2024 and wants to increase the defense budget "even thereafter".
DPA
Minister Kramp-Karrenbauer in Iraq in August: Top topic burden-sharing
For the Minister of Defense, the process is more than just a pitty in the tough negotiations on the mid-term review. More than any other in the Federal Government, she is under pressure from NATO to finally deliver. Only recently, at the NATO Council in Brussels, secretary general Jens Stoltenberg warned behind closed doors that the slight upward trend in German defense is not enough. Further steps are necessary. The burden sharing, warned Stoltenberg, will be the top topic at the NATO summit in December.
Even in your own home, you are surprised that the minister in the highly sensitive passage buckled. Unkept critics, perhaps the increasingly isolated Kramp-Karrenbauer's team was unaware of the importance of the passage. At Kramp-Karrenbauer's predecessor von der Leyen something like that was not possible. Not a few are now frustrated - they had hoped that the Minister will throw in the struggle for the budget and the German pledges her full political weight as CDU chief in the balance.
Kramp-Karrenbauer for more Bundeswehr missions abroad
For the new in the Bendler block the process comes at an inopportune time. Just on Thursday, the CDU leader, who finally condemned and mocked because of their abundantly flawed plan for a Bundeswehr mission in northern Syria, tried with a political sign of life. In Munich, she appeared at the Bundeswehr University, no less than a "keynote address" on security policy was on the program. In it Kramp Karrenbauer again demanded that Germany had to take more responsibility in the world.
In the speech, she also stayed with her line in terms of defense budget and even became concrete. In the defense budget, Germany needed "the increase to 1.5 percent by 2024 and two percent by 2031". Her goal was "well planned and I hold on to it".
Almost reminded Kramp-Karrenbauer to the German pledges at NATO - even if "some one" would not spend so much money for the Bundeswehr. "'Made in Germany' has always meant for me that you can rely on German commitments internationally," said the defense minister.
Above all, the US will follow closely the dispute over the NATO passages in the government program. Since Thursday Donald Trump's Foreign Minister Mike Pompeo is in Germany. Like his boss, he has repeatedly attacked Germany sharply because of the unfair burden sharing within NATO.
It is likely that during his meeting with Kramp-Karrenbauer on Friday, Pompeo will smugly ask how the Grand Coalition may not even be able to anchor the two-percent promise in its own government program.
