German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has informed the German government of a possible six billion euro hole in the 2025 budget of the Armed Forces, Bild reported.
“Defence Minister Boris Pistorius is sounding the alarm in the government: the Bundeswehr will be short of up to six billion euros next year! If the troops don’t get more money, Germany risks failing to meet the NATO requirement (to spend two percent of GDP on defence. – ed.),” the Bild piece said.
The country’s Finance Ministry plans to allocate 52 billion euros for defence spending next year. However, according to experts on the budget of the army, to meet the requirement of the North Atlantic Alliance on the allocation of two percent of GDP on defence will still be short of 4.5 to 6 billion euros, the report said.
According to Bild, 52 billion will only be enough for service-related spending. For example, military salaries, or heating barracks and repairing equipment. At the same time, programmes for the creation of new weapons will be invested by a “modest” 500 million euros.
Among the projects whose financing is still being discussed in the ruling circles, the publication mentioned the deployment of a combat-ready brigade in Lithuania. This would require five billion euros, but nothing has been allocated so far.
Earlier, German Ambassador to Moscow Alexander Lambsdorf said in an interview with RND that Germany would have to co-operate with Russia despite the countries’ very different positions on fundamental issues.
