What about the German’zeitenwende’the historic turnaround in foreign and security policy announced by Chancellor Olaf Scholz three days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine?
Almost a hundred days later, critics from home and abroad are wondering what has become of that turnaround: the British newspaper The Times called Scholz’s undetermined course “disappointing” this week. Opposition leader Friedrich Merz (CDU) grumbled during a debate in the Bundestag on Wednesday that the ‘Zeitenwende’ currently involves a lot of debt, but has otherwise become an empty term.
At least some of the investments in the German armed forces that Scholz announced in February will be given a destination this Friday. The Bundestag will vote on the spending of the somewhat out of the blue amount of 100 billion euros on Friday. The necessary two-thirds majority has already been secured in consultation with the government and opposition party CDU.
The CDU demanded that the 100 billion be spent solely on defense and not, as some more pacifist voices from coalition parties SPD and the Greens wanted, also on war prevention. The investment must Bundeswehrwhich had been severely cut back until a few years ago.
From the one-time edition of 100 billion euros will go to around 41 billion euros to the air force, 19 billion to the navy and 16.5 billion to the army. The purchase will include US F-35s, new German-made fighter planes, tanks, helicopters, a frigate, a number of smaller ships and an anti-aircraft defense system to be determined. The army, which is said to have a chronic shortage of basic necessities such as long johns and helmets, will also receive another 2.4 billion euros for the personal equipment of the soldiers.
Another part of Germany’s new defense policy is Scholz’s promise to have Germany meet NATO’s target of 2 percent of GDP on defense spending in the future. Here too, the Scholz government found a compromise with the opposition party CDU: the 2% standard will be achieved until 2024, but the government is free to invest more in one year than the other.
debt
For liberal finance minister Christian Lindner (FDP), the 2022 budget, which was debated Wednesday morning, is an acrobatic feat. The FDP is economically conservative and fiercely anti-debt, Lindner leading the way.
Still, the minister plans to incur huge debts this year, promising to return to the German government next year ‘Debt Bremse’ the constitutional obligation that the national debt should not increase by more than 0.35 percent of GDP per year.
In addition to 100 billion for the Bundeswehr, Lindner also wants to use 60 billion that were released last year to combat the corona crisis for investments in sustainability. The CDU finds it unconstitutional for money earmarked for a crisis to be transferred to another destination and has lodged an objection with the highest court in Karlsruhe.
old stuff
In addition to new equipment for the German army, Scholz also announced new arms deliveries to Ukraine on Wednesday. Earlier that morning, opposition leader Merz criticized Scholz and his government that the promised tanks from a month ago still have not arrived in Ukraine.
The Chancellor reacted, visibly provoked, with a list of all the weapons that Germany had already supplied. Scholz also mentioned an agreement with Greece: Greek tanks of Soviet origin will be delivered to Ukraine, Germany will supply new tanks to Greece in return.
Ukraine’s ambassador to Berlin Andri Melnyk was not impressed by the plan: “Nobody got the idea to ask the Ukrainians if we need that old stuff too,” the ambassador wrote on Twitter.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of June 2, 2022