![]() ![]() Germans, for all the clichés of boring bureaucrats, are no strangers to major policy shifts. Scholz also became even more concrete, urging progress on the stalled Future Combat Aircraft System project, announcing a push on the purchase of armed drones, and committing to replace Germany’s outdated Tornado jets to keep the country in NATO’s nuclear-weapons sharing mechanism. Having struggled for years to live up to its NATO commitments, Berlin is now prepared to invest enough to become the biggest military spender in Europe and the third biggest in the world. Subject to parliamentary debate, the new special fund will probably be used to finance a majority of this increase for the next several years (though there is still much uncertainty over the specifics). Two percent of Germany’s GDP amounts to approximately 75 billion euros in 2022, which is around 25 billion euros more than Berlin had initially planned to spend on defense this year. ![]() Since Germany has the largest economy in Europe, this spending increase will be substantial in absolute terms. ![]() 27, Chancellor Olaf Scholz also announced additional German troop deployments to NATO’s eastern flank, as well as the creation of a special one-off 100 billion euro ($109 billion) fund for the Bundeswehr and the commitment to spend, from now on, more than 2 percent of GDP on defense every year. In an unprecedented address to the German Bundestag on Feb. After three days of intense criticism from allies over Germany stalling on sanctions and doubling down on the long-held German taboo against sending weapons into conflict zones, the government not only green-lit the delivery of arms to Ukraine. The change in speed of Berlin policymaking in the last days of February was dizzying. Yet for Berlin to become a more capable actor in foreign, security, and defense policy, German policymakers and experts now have to urgently focus on issues they have neglected for years: crafting strategy reforming government bureaucracies altering the structures and processes of decision-making on foreign, security, and defense policy and explaining all this to the wider public.įor now, the German public - and any observers of the country - could be forgiven for feeling whiplash. And so Berlin changed its politics, announcing defense investments that promise to end decades of Germany lagging behind what allies expected. “If the world changes, our politics must change,” said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock three days after Russia started a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Editor’s note: Don’t miss our comprehensive guide to Russia’s war against Ukraine. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |