New goals are expensive for Germany

Defense planning

NATO calculations: New goals are expensive for Germany

In the current Bundestag election campaign, German defense spending are a explosive topic. Calculations now come from Brussels that could continue to begin the discussion.

According to the latest state of the NATO upgrade plans, the future federal government will have to plan a drastically higher defense spending. As the German press agency learned from alliance circles, calculations showed that prepared targets for the allies’ defense skills in the alliance cut would require annual defense spending in the amount of around 3.6 percent of gross domestic product. And the Federal Republic would probably have to spend even more to meet the goals provided for it.

Since Germany recently only had a little more than two percent of the GDP, additional funds would have to be raised in a high double -digit billionover height annually.

How the additional effort could be financed is completely open so far. So far, the Bundestag election campaign has been the most question of how the current expenditure rate of two percent can be maintained for the Bundeswehr in 2027 after the special fund was exhausted. This originally had a volume of 100 billion euros and – like the expenditure for the military support of Ukraine – is credited by NATO as a defense edition.

In the debate, the reigning Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) recently advocated a reform of the German debt brake and the establishment of a Germany fund for investments. Union politicians and the FDP have so far been critical of the softening of the debt brake.

Last summer, NATO had given the defense spending reported by Germany with 90.6 billion euros, which at the time corresponded to a GDP quota of 2.12 percent after conversion. Recent numbers have not yet been published.

The planned new NATO target requirements are about requirements that are placed on the Member States of the military alliance as part of the joint defense planning. They are regularly determined and adapted to meet current threats and security policy developments.

Above all, the politics of Russia with the war of aggression against Ukraine and allegations of hybrid warfare caused NATO defense planners to significantly increase the requirements. The currently planned skills goals are to be approved at a NATO defense ministerial meeting in June of this year. According to diplomats, they include a planning period by 2044, although many goals are to be achieved much earlier. It is about holding certain weapons systems and troops.

So far, it is still unclear the influence of the new US President Donald Trump on the decision-making processes. He recently demanded several times that the Allies should spend five percent of their gross domestic product for defense in the future. From the Republican’s point of view, the European partners do too little for defense and rely too much on the protection of the USA. In his first term from 2017 to 2021, Trump even threatened NATO leak. The first NATO meeting with the new US defense minister Pete Hegseth is now eagerly awaited this Thursday.

For Germany and many other NATO countries, a five percent goal would mean that they would have to double their defense spending. “Five percent would be over 200 billion euros per year, the federal budget does not even include 500 billion,” said Scholz in January on the sidelines of an election campaign event in Bielefeld. “This is only possible with the most massive tax increases or the most massive cuts for many things that are important to us.” The current NATO target is expenses of at least two percent of GDP.