Breaking Defense
December 8, 2022
Germany looks to close ‘peacetime’ capability gaps, targets €15B procurement budget by 2024
The German Federal Ministry of Defense (BMVg) has admitted in a new armaments report that it has serious military capability gaps caused by three decades of “peacetime” underfunding – and that filling those gaps quickly won’t be cheap.
The “16th report on selected procurements” document, published on Dec. 6, acknowledged that the draft 2023 defense budget will be set at €50.1 billion, €300 million less than the official 2022 total. However, Berlin optimistically forecasts that procurement spending will dramatically increase to reach a target of €15 billion by 2024, jumping from €9.9 billion set to be spent on equipment in 2022.
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Germany’s decision to approve a €100 billion special arms fund a matter of days after Russia invaded Ukraine represented a historic shift in the country’s national security ambitions. The move was designed to bring Germany closer to meeting the 2% NATO GDP spending target, which alliance partners have long criticized Germany for failing on….
The law introducing the special arms fund was “entered into force” on Jul. 1, per the report….
“The special fund is there to fund those capabilities that are needed to fill the capability gaps between what Germany has signed up for with NATO and has not delivered on so far,” he said.
The latest armaments report also confirms that Germany remains committed to increasing the number of its soldiers to 203,000 personnel by 2031, adjusted from the current level of around 183,000.
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As for three decades of Germany’s “peacetime” military, see below:
Anti-bellum 