The Bundeswehr could not defend Germany itself in an emergency. The equipment is bad. The bad news about the state of the troops did not stop recently. Now there is another one: the Bundeswehr is threatened with bankruptcy.
Ingo Gädechens sits on the Defense Committee of the Bundestag for the CDU. He says to the ” New Zurich newspaper (NZZ)”: “If the current financial planning sticks, the Bundeswehr will soon be broke.” The budget and defense expert of the SPD Andreas Schwarz takes the same line: “If we don’t massively increase the defense budget, things will soon look bleak for the Bundeswehr.”
“The ledgers have become fuller, but the warehouses have not”
The annual defense budget is 50 billion euros. In addition, there is the special fund of 100 billion euros announced by Olaf Scholz more than a year ago. Only: Not much of it has reached the Bundeswehr so far.
The Federal Defense Commissioner, Eva Högl, criticized the pace of the “turning point” in mid-March. “The first projects are on their way. But our soldiers in 2022 have not yet received a cent from the special fund. The procurement system is too sluggish,” wrote Högl. And further: “The troop’s ledgers have become fuller, but the clothing stores, ammunition depots and spare parts stores have not.”
The armaments industry also railed against the government in view of the lack of orders from the special fund: “To date, the incoming orders for German industry from the special fund have been negligible,” said Susanne Wiegand, head of the armored gear manufacturer Renk, in an interview with the “Augsburger Allgemeine”. “.
100 billion? Rising interest rates put a strain on the fund
The balance sheet is clear: According to the Ministry of Finance, not a cent was spent from the special fund in 2022. According to the Ministry of Defence, 30 billion euros have been planned so far. But there is a new problem: as interest rates rise, the amount actually available for modernizing the Bundeswehr is shrinking.
In the end, only 93 billion euros of the announced 100 billion euros may actually be available. The 93 billion euros are mainly used to finance weapons and equipment. Ammunition should not be included here. As the “NZZ” reports, the Ministry of Defense is now even considering removing the procurement of 15 ECR Eurofighters from the special fund.
