In the dispute with the USA over the defence of Germany has made expenditure on new Commitments. The Federal government presented to the Nato, according to information from the German press Agency and the magazine “Spiegel” on Tuesday of a strategy paper, which foresees an increase in the investment in the German army and their equipment over the already up to 2024 promised 1.5 per cent of gross domestic product. The existing commitment is an increase of 80 percent between 2014 and 2024 (in absolute Numbers from approximately 33 to 60 billion euros), says the report. “This increase will continue in the years after 2024.”
According to information from Nato circles do not correspond to the German information, however, is probably the expectations in the Alliance headquarters, and not to those of US President Donald Trump. Because both in Brussels and in Washington, you requested specific information about how the objectives in the defence expenditure can be achieved. So was in Germany until recently unclear how to 2024 with a rate of 1.5 per cent is to be achieved, if one will be in 2022, according to the medium-term financial planning is only 1.23 percent.
The German Figures could inflame the dispute over the defence expenditure within the Alliance. At a Nato summit meeting last summer in Brussels, Trump had not even excluded the possibility of an exit of the USA from the Alliance, should not spend all of the Alliance partners immediately, two percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) for defense. The US President complained for a long time an unfair burden-sharing in military alliances and attacked Germany, in particular, because of its relatively low output rate of recently, only 1.24 percent of GDP. The United States was at a value of 3.5 percent.
domestic political discussion about billion-hole
In the coming week, Nato defense Ministers come together in Brussels. Also in the subsequent Munich security conference, the defense will be spending theme.
the promise of the Federal government to the Nato bursts but also in the domestic political discussion about a billion-dollar hole in the financial planning for the next five years. On Monday it became known that the Ministry of Finance of the SPD Vice-Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, with an average of around five billion euros, attributed to lower tax revenues per year. In the medium-term financial plan to 2023 24.7 billion euros, missing the forecast of below-the-line. One reason is that the growth forecast for 2020 of 1.8 to 1.0 per cent, revised downwards.
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Bundeswehr Leyen insists on greater defence spending
defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) stressed on your journey through the Baltic States on Monday and Tuesday, that product was still on the planned increase of defense spending to 1.5 percent of gross domestic. Nato had agreed in 2014 at their summit meeting in Wales to ensure that each member state’s expenditure is to move the defence to two per cent of the gross domestic product. Germany has increased the share of GDP since then, from 1.18 to 1.24 per cent in 2018. (dpa)
