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| German Chancellor Olaf Scholz during the Hannover Industry Fair on May 29, 2022. |
The German tripartite government and the conservative bloc agreed this Sunday night on the details of the extraordinary item of 100,000 million euros announced by Chancellor Olaf Scholz before the Bundestag three days after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with the aim of modernizing the under-resourced armed forces (Bundeswehr).
Both parties announced after more than three hours of negotiations in the Ministry of Finance that the talks had concluded "successfully" on Sunday afternoon.
The special fund has been the subject of several weeks of legal wrangling. Since it will be linked to an amendment to the Basic Law, as the German constitution is known, the coalition of Social Democrats (SPD), Greens, and pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) depended on votes from the CDU/CSU.
In order to create this special fund, which aims to strengthen its own defensive capacity and within the Atlantic Alliance, in addition to amending the Basic Law, a law on the financing of the Bundeswehr will be introduced.
To anchor this fund in the Basic Law, for which the debt brake will not apply, a two-thirds majority is needed in the Bundestag (lower house) and Bundesrag (upper house), so the government coalition, made up of social democrats, greens and liberals, it needs the support of the conservative bloc.
"Together we will ensure that the Bundeswehr will be strengthened in the coming years with 100 billion euros in additional investments," the statement said.
2% of GDP in Defense
Likewise, more than two percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) will be invested in Defense, in accordance with the commitments of the NATO Defense alliance. In this way, he adds, "the objective of 2% of NATO will be reached in an average of several years."
Once this extraordinary allocation has been exhausted, the necessary funds will continue to be made available to achieve the NATO capacity objectives in force at that time. The 100,000 million will go entirely to the Bundeswehr, as the conservative bloc had demanded, so that other aspects, such as the improvement of cyber defense, which the greens wanted to be financed with this special fund, will come out of the ordinary budget.
Under the agreement, an initiative to accelerate acquisitions will be launched immediately and still before the parliamentary summer recess. The economic plan with the specific acquisition projects is adopted with the agreed law and an advisory body of the budget commission will accompany the process.