Chancellor Scholz announced last year that “from now on more than two percent of gross domestic product should be invested in our defense”. Not true, says the Ifo Institute.
According to calculations by the Ifo Institute, Germany could again miss the target announced by Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) of spending two percent of economic output on defense in 2024. The draft budget provides for spending of 52 billion euros in the defense budget and 19 billion euros from the Bundeswehr special fund. “That’s only 1.7 percent of economic output. There’s a deficit of 14 billion euros, which other ministries would have to classify as defense spending,” says Ifo military expert Marcel Hauler.
The price-adjusted defense budget has even fallen since 2022. The defense budget and special funds were not enough for the two percent target in 2024. So far it is only known that an additional 4 billion euros are earmarked for upgrading foreign partners such as Ukraine. But where “the other departments are getting involved in defense or whether it’s just a matter of relabeling existing items of expenditure” is open, said Traktor.
After the beginning of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine in February 2022, Chancellor Scholz had proclaimed a “turning point” in the Bundestag and said that Germany would “from now on – year after year – invest more than two percent of the gross domestic product in our defense”. The Bundeswehr will receive 100 billion euros from a special fund for investments and armament projects. According to the Ifo Institute, only EUR 1.2 billion of this EUR 100 billion was paid out by mid-2023.
The boss of the tank manufacturer Krauss-Maffei-Wegmann, Ralf Ketzel, told the “Münchner Merkur” last week: “To date, nothing has really come up with us. (…) Really new projects are still going very slowly Ahead.” In Germany, “we will probably fall short of the NATO commitment for the foreseeable future.” In addition, Europe is sinking a lot of money into armaments through parallel projects: “To the extent that we can afford it, it is a great waste”.
Source: Stern
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