InvestigationFor this nation rebuilt in the refusal of the war after 1945, the massive investments in defense and the deliveries of arms to Ukraine mark a historic turning point. However, the Germans are struggling to assume this new role.
Five weeks apart, the German deputies took two decisions that can, without exaggeration, be described as historic. The first dates back to April 27. That day, the Bundestag passed a resolution authorizing Berlin to deliver heavy weapons to Ukraine. In Berlin, such a green light would have been unimaginable just a few months ago. “The German government has had a clear line for years: no arms deliveries to war regions and no lethal weapons to Ukraine”recalled Chancellor Olaf Scholz, on February 7, two and a half weeks before the Russian invasion, but while voices in Germany were urging his government to supply arms to kyiv in anticipation of an attack increasingly judged more likely.
The second decision concerns the Bundeswehr. On June 3, German MPs agreed to revise the Basic Law to add the following sentence to its paragraph 87a, devoted to the armed forces: “To build capacity in terms of defense and inter-allied cooperation, the federal state is authorized to create a special fund of 100 billion euros. » Thanks to this exceptional envelope, proposed by Olaf Scholz on February 27, three days after the start of the war in Ukraine, Berlin will finally achieve the objective that NATO has set for its members: to devote 2% of their gross domestic product ( GDP) to their military spending by 2024. Currently, Germany caps at 1.5%.
A broad political consensus
Again, this is a dramatic turnaround. Nobody could, in fact, imagine that it would be a Social Democratic Chancellor (SPD) who undertakes to cross this 2% threshold, while the leaders of his party have constantly, in recent years, challenge its merits. Like Norbert Walter-Borjans, who on December 6, 2019, in his investiture speech for the chairmanship of the SPD, said this: “This 2% target is not mine. That would mean billions of euros for tanks and helicopters rather than for schools, railways and roads. (…) Yes to equipment, no to rearming! » At the time, these remarks had created strong tensions within the “grand coalition” of Angela Merkel, the party of the ex-chancellor, the CDU, having on the contrary clearly pronounced in favor of the 2%.
Arms deliveries to a country at war, unprecedented increase in defense spending: these two decisions are all the more important because they were the subject of a broad political consensus. In the Bundestag, only the parties located at the two extremities of the hemicycle, Die Linke, on the left, and the AfD, on right, did indeed oppose it. All the others, on the other hand, decided to vote for, be it the SPD, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats (FDP), the three members of Olaf Scholz’s “traffic light” majority, or the conservatives of the CDU-CSU, in opposition since the departure of Angela Merkel from power in December 2021.
You have 85.79% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.