Weapons deliveries: German arms exports for more than ten billion euros

The federal government’s approvals for arms exports are heading for a new record. From January 1st to October 15th this year, 4,163 export licenses for weapons and military equipment worth 10.9 billion euros have already been issued. This emerges from a response from the Ministry of Economics to a request from BSW MP Sevim Dagdelen, which was submitted to the German Press Agency.

This means that only 1.3 billion euros are missing from the previous year’s record figure of 12.2 billion euros. Two thirds of this year’s approval value, 7.2 billion euros, were for war weapons.

Increase mainly because of weapons for Ukraine

The increase is largely due to arms exports to Ukraine for the defense against Russia. According to an earlier response from the ministry, armaments worth 4.9 billion euros were approved for Ukraine in the first half of the year alone.

In their coalition negotiations, the SPD, Greens and FDP had actually planned to curb arms exports and to introduce a control law for this purpose. Then came the U-turn in arms policy with the Ukraine war. The self-imposed ban on arms deliveries to an ongoing war was overturned by Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) in his “turning point” speech on February 27, 2022. Last year more military equipment was exported than ever before.

The BSW politician Dagdelen sharply criticized the ongoing increase: “This run-down traffic light government doesn’t get anything done except as an extended arm of the arms industry, constantly setting new records for arms deliveries.”