The government of Berlin announced that this year it had exceeded 2% of GDP in defense and security spending, even surpassing NATO commitments for the first time and obtaining compliments from the headquarters of the Atlantic Alliance. Ard – the main national public TV – has however reviewed the Defense budget and in an italics signed by Stephan Stuchlik and reveals that Berlin has resorted to several accounting tricks.
The Ministry of Defense would add a large part of the expenses made with the extraordinary fund to its calculation 100 billion decided in July 2022, which in fact has already been almost completely awarded last year. 2% of GDP is equivalent to approximately 86 billionhe summarizes Ardwhile the regular Defense budget only includes around 52 and to fill the void, 20 billion were brought back from the extraordinary fund.
To increase the ceiling on defense expenditure communicated to Brussels, many items taken from the budgets of other ministries were creatively added. The Ministry of Finance reports payments of interests for the purchase of war material, investments made before the current government and partly over ten years ago. However, the ministry responded to the broadcaster that “it is current practice”. In total 5 billion, he reveals Ardthe Ministry of Finance also calculates interest for the payment of pensions and for development aidwhich have nothing directly to do with defense costs.
The sum then increased with the payments of contributions for children to members of the armed forces distributed by the Ministry for the Family. The expenditure items are still enriched by contributions to former members of the national popular army of the former GDR (National Volksarmee or Nva) which according to the broadcaster do not increase the defensive capabilities of the Federal Republic of Germany.
As relevant defense expenditure for NATO purposes, Berlin also includes around one billion in funds from the Ministry for Development led by Svenja Schulze (SPD) for reconstruction in crisis and war zones and the expenses for crisis prevention of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as the membership fees that Germany pays to United Nations.
Ard concludes that other countries have also been rigging their accounts for years – Spain would computerize the expenses for the Madrid firefighters and Greece those for the pensions of the former soldiers of the times of the military dictatorship -, but the German Government is no different by masking the persistent deficits in defense policy to achieve the objective of 2% to be paid to NATO. As early as next year, with current financial means, the broadcaster predicts, it will no longer be so easy to reach it.
