German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has pledged to keep spending on the German armed forces on track after the terms of a preliminary budget deal for 2025 agreed on Friday included a modest increase for the Bundeswehr.
Scholz said the Bundeswehr’s regular budget will amount to €80 billion ($87 billion) after 2028, when the special €100 billion emergency fund for the armed forces — agreed after Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — is exhausted.
The Chancellor said the €80 billion would ensure Germany met NATO’s defence spending threshold of 2% of GDP.
The current regular budget of the Bundeswehr amounts to €52 billion. The new budget deal, which Scholz agreed upon together with Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck and Finance Minister Christian Lindner, have proposed a €1.2 billion increase for the Bundeswehr, which is far lower than the €6 billion increase demanded by Defence Minister Boris Pistorius.
Scholz defended the deal in Berlin on Friday morning, saying: “It is about a strong defense, a strong Bundeswehr that provides protection against the aggressive rulers of our time.”
