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Brussels / Berlin (dpa) - Germany has once again reported record defense spending to NATO.

According to information from the German Press Agency, the federal government transferred an amount of 53.03 billion euros to the Brussels alliance headquarters for the current year.

This corresponds to an increase of 3.2 percent compared to the previous year.

For 2020, the expenditure was last put at around 51.39 billion euros.

At NATO headquarters it is hoped that the increase in defense spending by countries like Germany can further defuse the transatlantic dispute over fairer burden-sharing in the alliance.

Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg recently made it clear several times that he expected pressure from the new US President Joe Biden on this issue.

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"All US presidents have campaigned for more defense spending by the European NATO partners in the past few decades," he said at the turn of the year in an interview with the German press agency.

Even before his election, Biden urged the European allies to invest more.

Under Biden's predecessor Donald Trump, the pressure had recently been particularly great.

At a NATO summit in Brussels in 2018, Trump did not even rule out the United States' withdrawal from the alliance if all allies did not immediately spend two percent of their gross domestic product on defense.

The two percent is a target that, following a voluntary commitment from 2014, all alliance partners want to strive for.

According to the latest public NATO calculations, German defense spending in 2020 corresponded to a share of the gross domestic product of 1.57 percent - after 1.36 percent in the previous year.

The sharp increase in the GDP ratio was mainly due to the economic slump caused by the Corona crisis.

Before the crisis, it was expected that German spending would only lead to a rate of around 1.42 percent.

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The estimated rate for 2021 was initially unknown.

It is calculated by experts from the alliance on the basis of GDP projections from international statistical databases.

According to estimates, the percentage for 2021 could slip slightly below that of 2020 despite the significant increase in spending.

The Federal Ministry of Defense neither wanted to confirm nor deny this when asked by the German Press Agency.

"Basically, the current economic situation illustrates the problem of the formula chosen by NATO for assessing the defense efforts of the Allies," said a spokeswoman.

In the view of the Federal Government, the quotas derived from GDP are rather unsuitable as the main benchmark for the fulfillment of the NATO summit resolutions from 2014.

The real gain in substance for the armed forces should actually always be decisive.

The aim is to achieve NATO capability goals by means of increased defense spending and to strengthen operational commitments.

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Against this background, the Ministry of Defense and the Bundeswehr are currently fighting again to do as well as possible in the federal financial planning for the next year.

According to a report from the current “Spiegel”, the internal “Financial Requirements Analysis 2022” again paints the picture of chronically underfunded armed forces.

According to the report, "numerous armaments projects required to meet NATO planning goals" could not be implemented or initiated with the current financial planning, or could no longer be implemented on time.

A horror scenario for the military is that because of the economic consequences of the corona pandemic, the red pencil has to be used again.

"The military needs of the Bundeswehr exist regardless of pandemic and economic developments," it says soberly from the ministry on the subject.

It is seen in a similar way at NATO.

When asked why governments should spend more on defense, when health care and getting out of the recession are currently a priority for so many people, Secretary-General Stoltenberg pointed to Russia's security threats, sophisticated cyberattacks and the rise of China.

"All of this has created a new security environment that continues to make investments in our security necessary," he said recently in a dpa interview.

In addition, since the outbreak of the corona pandemic, it has been seen how helpful military skills are in supporting civilian health services.

© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210207-99-336405 / 2