Germany criticized for abandoning NATO spending commitments

The Ministry of Defense is led by the Green Party in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's tripartite coalition government. Photo: Ronald Wittek/Shutterstock

Germany The government has been criticized for an 'absurd' plan to present interest payments as defense spending after reneging on promises to meet NATO spending targets.

Berlin backs away from legally binding obligation to spend Last-minute 2 percent of GDP for defense on Wednesday, a government official told Reuters.

An objection to the clause, which was part of the new public funding law, was reportedly raised by the Foreign Office. The ministry is run by the Green Party in the tripartite coalition government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

The events came after the German newspaper Bild reported that the country's defense ministry had been instructed to include debt service payments in military spending. next year to make up for the fact that Berlin would otherwise miss NATO's goal.

€14bn is missing

Defense spending in 2024 is projected to be €14 billion less than planned. However, the Ministry of Defense plans to make up about 9 billion euros of this shortfall by adding debt servicing to its official spending.

“The idea of ​​classifying interest payments as defense spending is frankly absurd. While soldiers can protect our country, interest rates certainly cannot,” said Info Gadehens, an MP for the opposition center-right party CDU.

A defense ministry spokesman told The Telegraph that the move was in line with the standards NATO.

“In addition to the entire defense budget…defense spending under NATO criteria may sometimes also include spending on other separate plans,” such as spending by the foreign and finance ministries, the spokesman said.

Berlin will also include 4 billion euros of military assistance provided to Ukraine in its defense indicators.

The Ministry of Defense stated that «spending on building the capacity of partner states in the field of security, defense and stabilization» can legitimately be included in the total amount of spending, transferred to NATO.

Failed to reach the target

Germany. repeatedly fell short of NATO's defense spending target in recent years, irritating other allies, most notably the United States.

Donald Trump, the former US president, has regularly berated Berlin for its defense commitments while in office. /p>

After Russia's invasion of Ukraine last February, Mr. Scholz promised to reinvest heavily in the German armed forces.

Speaking before the German Parliament three days after the start of the war, he promised to hit NATO's spending target is «year-by-year,» a promise he repeated at the alliance's summit in Vilnius last month.

Caught off guard by the invasion of Ukraine, Germany's top generals admitted last February that the country's army was «naked «. ” in the face of any potential invasion.

Berlin has since made a half-hearted attempt to procure state-of-the-art equipment, most recently spending £2.75 billion on Israel's Arrow-3 missile defense system.