Of the total amount, 9.04 billion euros can be traced back to approvals from the old federal government of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats. In the first three weeks after taking office on December 8, the new government of SPD, Greens and FDP only allowed exports for 309 million euros. This emerges from the preliminary annual statistics published by the Federal Ministry of Economics on Tuesday.
The previous high for arms export licenses dates back to 2019 at 8.015 billion euros and was exceeded by more than a billion euros last year. It had already become known in December that the old German government had approved arms exports worth 4.91 billion euros in the last nine days alone. At this point, she was only in office as an executive and was therefore not required to make any more far-reaching political decisions.
Particularly explosive: The number one recipient country by far is Egypt, which has been criticized for human rights violations and its involvement in the conflicts in Yemen and Libya. The government approved weapons and other armaments worth 4.34 billion euros for the North African country, which was ruled with an iron fist.