German defence minister deplores meagre military spending

German defence minister Boris Pistorius has criticised his government for approving less than a fifth of the budget increase he said was needed by Germany’s military, in stark remarks on the eve of a Nato summit in Washington.

After months of fraught talks, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-way coalition agreed a fiscally conservative budget last week — which according to Pistorius falls far short of the country’s goals of investing more in the armed forces.

“I got a lot less than I asked for. That’s annoying for me because it means I can’t initiate certain things at the speed that . . . the threat level requires,” Pistorius said, speaking from Alaska on Monday, where he was visiting German troops ahead of Nato’s three-day summit in Washington. 

Military budgets of the alliance’s members will be top of the agenda as they gather to celebrate its 75th anniversary, with questions once more being asked over whether European allies are doing enough to effectively deter future Russian aggression. 

Behind that debate looms the spectre of a second presidency for Donald Trump, who threatened to pull the US out of Nato as a result of European underspending during his first term in office.

Germany, Europe’s largest economy, was for years a laggard in meeting Nato’s main target of military funding, equivalent to 2 per cent of gross domestic product. 

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, Scholz pledged to rectify that in what he said was a Zeitenwende — a turning point — for German security policy. 

Berlin says that thanks to funding from a one-off €100bn special fund it has created, the country will exceed its 2 per cent target for the first time this year. 

“All eyes are now on Germany and on what we are doing, considering we’re the biggest EU member state and make the largest military contribution in Europe . . . We have a certain responsibility and we will live up to it,” a senior government official said.

“In conversations with allies, they see 2.19 per cent of GDP [Germany’s current spending level] as a considerable feat. And they also recognise what we’ve achieved in ensuring we spend 2 per cent of GDP from now on.” 

But according to Pistorius — who took over the defence ministry in January 2023 and has emerged as the most forthright advocate in Scholz’s cabinet of an even more robust German defence policy — the sums are still not adequate.

The special fund is due to run out in 2027, meaning the regular defence budget must also grow significantly, he has pointed out. 

According to the government budget agreed on Friday, defence spending will rise by just €1.2bn to €53.2bn next year.

Pistorius had asked for an increase of more than €6bn.

“We’ll see what happens in the next few weeks and months. I will have to accept it and make the best of it,” he said.

His remarks follow criticism from others over the weekend.

The chair of the German military’s soldiers association, André Wüstner, on Sunday said the servicemen and women he had spoken to were “astonished” by the sum.

“No one would have expected the defence budget to be so underfunded,” he said, warning that “massive adjustments” were needed to realistically make the Bundeswehr capable of meeting its Nato requirements and effectively deterring Russia.

The budget was a “big bluff”, Norbert Röttgen, of the opposition Christian Democratic Union and a member of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, told the magazine Wirtschaftswoche. “The defence budget will receive a below-inflationary boost. There’s no sign of security being a priority.”

Budget negotiations were stalled largely due to the staunch opposition of finance minister Christian Lindner, a member of the fiscally hawkish Free Democrats, the smallest partner in Scholz’s coalition government.  

Lindner, who has himself repeatedly stressed support for Germany meeting its Nato spending targets, dismissed grumbling over the outcome.

“The defence minister will get more money than in the previous budget, but he will get less money than he publicly demanded. That is the normal budget process,” he told the newspaper Bild.