As of: February 12, 2024, 5:14 a.m
By: Bettina Menzel
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Boris Pistorius (SPD) is usually highly praised - now there is criticism from Bundeswehr employees.
© IMAGO/dts news agency
The restructuring of the Ministry of Defense is considered complete.
Over 1,000 positions are affected by the reform.
Boris Pistorius now has to put up with criticism from within his own ranks.
Berlin – According to surveys, Boris Pistorius (SPD) has been the most popular politician in Germany for months.
The Federal Minister of Defense also usually receives good references from his troops.
When he took over as commander-in-chief, Pistorius made it his mission to restructure his department.
However, there is now a hail of criticism about the new structure - including from within our own ranks.
Criticism of the restructuring of the Bundeswehr from our own ranks: “Unsuccessful change management”
The Bundeswehr has numerous problems.
The troops, some of which are “conditionally operational”, lack suitable equipment and the change in times is progressing slowly.
There is also a huge funding gap of several billion in the Bundeswehr budget.
The Ministry of Defense also had structural problems: in some cases there were no clear responsibilities and no direct reporting channels.
Shortly after taking office at the beginning of 2023, Pistorius announced that he wanted to restructure his ministry.
The aim of the reform was to create an “agile, efficient and effective house” to fulfill the core mission of national and alliance defense, it was said at the time.
At the beginning of February this year, the Defense Minister completed the reorganization of his department, a spokeswoman said.
But apparently not everyone is happy with that: Last week, the General Personnel Council (GPR) of the Federal Ministry of Defense spoke out and emphasized that it did not support the restructuring plans.
A corresponding letter was available to
Spiegel
.
The Association of Civil Servants and Employees of the Bundeswehr (VBB) also shares this criticism: In a press release published on Friday (February 9), the VBB assessed the “unrest that has arisen” in the Federal Ministry of Defense as “a clear expression of unsuccessful change management.”
There are “existing doubts among many employees – whether soldiers, employees or civil servants – about the desired effectiveness of the measures,” the letter continued.
The representation of interests of around 15,000 members is seen as an “important means of support for successful changes.
However, the minister does not seem to see this as an opportunity for his success.”
Bundeswehr: These are the specific points of criticism from the Association of Civil Servants and Employees
As a result of the reorganization, around 225 positions will sooner or later be eliminated in the ministry: 150 of these will, according to the information, be eliminated and a further 75 will be moved to subordinate departments.
The VBB criticizes this reorganization of positions.
Due to demographic developments, qualified personnel are the key to defensive capability, emphasize the employees and officials.
But the expertise of the deployed posts would be lost.
There is a risk that recruitment problems will become larger rather than smaller.
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The association also sees problems with the supervision of the privatized Bundeswehr companies.
“If you organize yourself in such a way that the proximity of society and supervision becomes too close, and people who initially exercise supervision then subsequently take on highly paid management positions in the companies, then in our opinion this is not compatible with the compliance rules.” , according to the statement.
There is further criticism of the “exorbitantly high salaries” of the managing directors of the privatized Bundeswehr companies.
VBB sees “fragmentation” of the armaments department
The ministry itself had stated that in the reorganization “unnecessary interfaces were removed, structures were set up more clearly and non-ministerial tasks were transferred to subordinate areas”.
According to the ministry, tasks have been combined in armaments policy and cooperation.
The VBB, however, speaks of a “fragmentation” of the armaments department.
If the specialist task is distributed across three departments, “new interfaces and a significant need for coordination would arise.
The specialist task is being weakened,” is the summary of the officials and employees of the Bundeswehr.
It’s not about “individual sensitivities,” emphasizes the VBB in the statement.
But the restructuring has very personal consequences for many: a total of around 1,000 positions are affected by the reform.