Germany Promised to Step Up Militarily. Its Budget Says Differently.

[Pelican Press 0]

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Germany Promised to Step Up Militarily. Its Budget Says Differently.

Two-and-a-half years after Chancellor Olaf Scholz vowed to overhaul Germany’s military, his government’s proposed budget for 2025 calls for only a modest increase in defense spending.

The draft budget was deeply disappointing to those looking for signs that Germany would live up to Mr. Scholz’s promise of a “Zeitenwende,” defined by the chancellor himself as an “epochal tectonic shift” in strategy, which he announced with great fanfare in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

With the war in Ukraine grinding on, Russia continuing to saber-rattle and Donald J. Trump gaining momentum for a return to the White House, Germany has been under increasing pressure from its allies to step into a more robust security role.

To live up to that pledge, Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defense minister, had asked for an increase of 6.7 billion, or $7.3 billion, over the 52 billion euros, or nearly $57 billion, in this year’s budget. He was given only 1.2 billion. The shortfall deepened concerns that Mr. Scholz’s unpopular government lacks the will or political backing to push Germans to overcome their historical reluctance to take the lead militarily since the calamity of World War II.

The budget, which has to pass Parliament before being adopted, also proposes that Germany cut its military aid to Ukraine by half in 2025. Germany’s finance minister, ********** Lindner, said Ukraine could instead rely on a $50 billion fund backed by frozen Russian assets that the Group of 7 nations agreed on last month.

But critics pounced on the government, saying the modest increase in military spending would not enable Germany to fulfill its promises to NATO, let alone bring about an epochal shift.

“The funds in the planned defense budget are not at all sufficient to make the Bundeswehr ready for defense again” said Roderich Kiesewetter, a former colonel who now sits in Parliament for the ************* ********** Democratic Union.

“This is absolutely frustrating for the soldiers and detrimental to our security,” he added.

Germany has also told the alliance that it would spend 2 percent of its ****** domestic product on the military, but that is being met through a $109 billion special fund, outside the regular budget, that will not dry out until 2027.

The budget proposal, critics warned, was especially disconcerting given developments in the ******* States and the possibility of Mr. Trump’s return to the White House next year.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly complained about the ********* allies not paying their fair share in the NATO alliance, and said that he would “encourage” Russia “to do whatever the ***** they want” to countries that had not paid the money they owed.

The announcement, this week, that Senator J.D. Vance, a declared critic of aid to Ukraine, would be Mr. Trump’s running mate, has ratcheted up fears that the defense of Ukraine could rest on Europe’s shoulders.

But if recent events in the ******* States has ******* leaders worried about Ukraine and the cohesion of NATO, next year’s budget does not reflect it.

Markus Ziener, a visiting senior fellow at the ******* Marshall Fund, says that, given the state of the presidential race in the ******* States, the budget is not doing enough.

“When you see what Vance has said in the past, we may soon be confronted with a situation where we in Europe will have to take the lead if Ukraine is not to collapse financially,” he said.

“This budget is not a sign that we have recognized this situation,” he added.

Since the start of the war, Germany has provided nearly $11 billion in military aid to Ukraine, making it the second-largest donor after the ******* States, according to the

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, a research group that tracks transfers to Ukraine. Some of Germany’s aid — like three Patriot air defense systems, howitzers and modern battle tanks — has come directly from its military arsenal.

But committing to an increase in military spending and making it more consistent and predictable — something arms manufacturers say they need — is a Rubicon ******* politicians and the public have been unwilling to cross.

Government spending ******** rigorously constrained by a cap on borrowing, which has made balancing the budget especially difficult, particularly during an economic downturn like the one Germany is currently experiencing.

This year’s federal budget of 481 billion euros, about $525 billion, was especially challenging; Mr. Scholz and senior ministers of his two coalition partners spent 80 hours agreeing on its finer points.

The fact that funding for the military and Ukraine fared so poorly in the budget no doubt reflected the political challenges facing Mr. Scholz’s Social Democratic Party, or S.P.D., as it looks toward three important state elections this fall.

The far-right Alternative for Germany is expected to pose a strong challenge in the contests, and many of their voters disagree with the government’s support for Ukraine.

“In the S.P.D. and other parties they think very carefully about how much they want to lean out of the window in favor of Ukraine before these elections,” Mr. Ziener said.

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