A Germany plan halve its military aid to Ukraine next year, despite concerns that support from USA to Kiev could potentially decrease if Republican candidate Donald Trump returns to the White House.
German aid to Ukraine will be cut to 4 billion euros ($4.35 billion) in 2025 from around 8 billion euros in 2024, according to a draft 2025 budget seen by Reuters.
Germany hopes that Ukraine will be able to meet most of its military needs with the €50 billion in loans from the proceeds of frozen Russian assets approved by the Group of Seven, and that the funds earmarked for armaments will not be fully used.
“Ukraine’s financing is secured for the foreseeable future thanks to European instruments and G7 loans,” German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said at a press conference on Wednesday.
Washington has pushed to “frontload” the loans, so as to give Ukraine a large lump sum up front.
According to officials, EU leaders agreed to the idea in part because it reduces the possibility of Ukraine running out of funds. if Trump returns to the White House.
This week, alarm bells were ringing across Europe after Trump picked Senator JD Vance.
Trump has been fiercely criticized for suggesting he would not protect countries that did not meet the transatlantic military alliance’s defense spending goals and would even encourage Russia to attack them.
Germany has been criticized for repeatedly failing to meet the goal of NATO to allocate 2% of the state budget to defense.
Military reserves depleted
The German military’s stockpiles, already depleted by decades of underinvestment, were further reduced by arms supplies to Kiev.
To date, Berlin has donated three Patriot air defense units to Kiev, more than any other countryreducing the number of Patriot systems in Germany to nine.
The German coalition, composed of left-wing social democrats, liberals and environmentalist greenshas struggled to meet NATO’s spending target due to self-imposed rules that limit the amount of government borrowing it can take out. Although military aid to Ukraine will be reduced, Germany will meet NATO’s target of spending 2% of GDP on defense by 2025, with a total of €75.3 billion.
Days after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a “Zeitenwende” — a historic turning point in German — with a special €100 billion fund to bring the armed forces up to speed.
From this special fund, there will be an additional 22 billion euros for defense, to which 53.3 billion euros from the regular budget will be added, still less than what Defense Minister Boris Pistorius wanted.
The defense budget is expected to receive 1.3 billion euros more than in 2024, well below the 6.7 billion euros requested by Pistorius.
As ever-increasing annual operating costs outstrip this increase, the Ministry of Defence is being forced to cut ammunition orders for 2025 by more than half, reduce procurement by €260 million and research and development by more than €200 million.
The 2025 budget is part of the medium-term financial planning until 2028, the year in which the special fund for the armed forces to meet NATO’s minimum expenditure targets is expected to be exhausted and in which €80 billion will be needed for defence, as indicated in the financial plan.
In 2028, there is a deficit of 39 billion euros in the regular budget, of which 28 billion euros are needed to meet NATO’s target without the special fund, Finance Ministry sources said.
“The 80 billion euros that have been put forward for 2028 simply do not exist,” said Ingo Gaedechens, a member of the parliamentary budget committee from the conservative opposition CDU party. “The coalition is not even trying to cover this up, but is openly admitting it.”
Source: rr.sapo.pt
