During his inaugural visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised to stand up for strong German armed forces. Of course, everything is done to equip the Bundeswehr well, said the SPD politician on Friday evening after a conversation with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. During his time as finance minister, Germany’s defense spending had already risen in a way that “many, many years” had not been the case. "This is now something that we will continue to do within the budget we have," he said.
However, Scholz did not expressly commit to the so-called two percent target set by NATO in 2014.
It envisages that by 2024 all allies will approach the NATO benchmark of spending at least two percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defense.
The goal is also not mentioned in the coalition agreement.
Stoltenberg said that if you cut defense spending when there was less tension, as there was after the Cold War, then you had to be able to raise it again when tensions rose again.
The latter is currently the case.
At the same time, the Norwegian admitted that it was never easy to find money for defense.
After all, more money for this means less money for something else.
According to NATO standards, defense spending in Germany reached around 51.6 billion euros last year.
However, with a GDP rate of 1.55 percent, Germany was still far from the two percent target.
This year, according to the latest published estimates, expenditures of around 53.2 billion euros and a rate of only 1.53 percent are expected.