Berlin’s failure to meet the alliance’s agreement to spend 2% of GDP on defence has been a source of tension between Germany and the US. Angela Merkel earlier pledged to boost military spending up to 1.5 percent of GDP by 2024. But the budget plan, introduced in Berlin, suggests that the expenditures will be decreasing after a rise next year.
German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz has presented the country’s budget plan for the next several years allocating an extra $2.4 billion for military spending in 2020. This means the share of defence expenditures will increase to 1.37 percent of GDP and closer to NATO’s 2 percent target. However, after what the ministry described as a “notable increase,” the expenditure share will be rolling back to 1.25 percent of GDP, or $50.2 billion by 2023.
The Ministry of Finance has justified its budget planning due to the worsening economic prospects, the German outlet Spiegel reports. Apart from military spending, the ministry is also planning to gradually cut its spending on development aid from $11.6 billion in 2020 to $10.8 billion in 2023.