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Not well prepared despite special assets?
Bundeswehr soldier on the Wettiner Heide training ground in Lower Saxony
Photo: IMAGO/Rainer Droese / IMAGO/localpic
The NATO alliance would like a specific number from all member states: the states should spend two percent of their economic output on defense.
Germany has so far been well below this target, but Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) promised a significant rearmament after the Russian attack on Ukraine.
Researchers at the German Economic Institute (IW) are now saying that Germany will not achieve the two percent target in the long term, despite the announced »turning point«.
Although the Bundeswehr will receive a special fund of 100 billion euros, the Federal Republic will not reach the hurdle in 2023 or in the years from 2026 onwards.
According to the published IW study, the goal is "far away" and even procurements that are necessary in the short term are not progressing.
The reasons given by the IW
the high price increases,
Equipment procurement delays
and the underfunding of the Bundeswehr in the financial planning of the regular federal budget.
Compliance with the two percent quota can therefore only be assumed for the years 2024 and 2025, including the special fund.
For 2026, on the other hand, the IW expects a gap of 9.7 billion euros, which will continue to widen in the years that follow.
According to the IW's forecast, the regular defense budget would have to be increased "by at least five percent" per year without adding the special fund in order to reach the two percent target.
According to the IW, the reason for the increasing need for finance is, on the one hand, that the gross domestic product (GDP) is likely to rise more nominally in the coming years than previously assumed due to inflation.
In addition, there are higher costs for the procurement of armaments and other equipment as well as for personnel.
The Institute is assuming an annual increase in personnel costs of five percent based on the expected wage settlements for the public sector.
The IW points out that in 2023, despite planned expenditure from the special fund of 8.5 billion euros, in addition to the normal budget funds of around 50 billion euros, around 18.9 billion euros are still missing before the two percent mark is reached.
For 2027, based on the financial planning of the federal government, a gap of 39 billion euros is assumed.
»Decided«
Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said in Berlin that the approaches in the government's medium-term financial planning for the defense budget were a "massively conservative estimate".
He pointed out that in recent years more money had always been made available for the Bundeswehr than was previously provided for in the financial plan.
The federal government and Chancellor Scholz are "firmly determined" to first "get as close as possible to the two percent" and then to achieve the target in the further course of the legislative period, Hebestreit continued.
After that, this should also be the case »permanently«.
The government spokesman once again justified the fact that the so-called NATO quota is not yet being adhered to with the necessary lead time for procurement.
In addition, the industry is currently working to capacity because of the many armament orders from different parties.
This leads to higher prices, but also to longer delivery times.
mrc/AFP
