After Russia invaded Ukraine, Germany created a special fund of 100 billion euros to re-equip its armed forces. For the head of the army and the Minister of Defense, it is not enough: the German special fund of 100 billion euros (550 billion reais) to modernize the Bundeswehr, the German Armed Forces, will not be enough to fully equip the country’s military, German army commander General Alfons Mais told German news agency dpa.

This fund was created last year, after the start of the invasion of Ukraine, and constitutes an additional amount, in addition to the budgetary allocations already planned for the armed forces.

But caused controversy last year when he criticized what he described as years of neglect in the operational readiness of the Bundeswehr, but he told dpa that progress had already been made in the process of acquisition of new equipment.

“I see a lot of pressure to move forward with purchases as quickly as possible. We haven’t delivered the Leopard tanks yet and we are already thinking about how to replace them as soon as possible, and rightly so,” he said. he said, referring to the planned delivery of German-made Leopard 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine.

But in addition to replacing the tanks and weapons sent to Ukraine, a “material increase to full equipment” is important, Mais stressed. “However, the special fund alone will not be enough to achieve this.”

On February 24 last year, the day Russia began its invasion of the neighboring country, Mais wrote on LinkedIn: “The Bundeswehr, the army I have the privilege of leading, is more or less empty.” Currently, he says he prefers not to use that term anymore. “It doesn’t do justice to where we are today, a year later,” he said.

Much would have been done since then, and preparation should not be reduced to equipment, he added. “Things are moving forward”

The Minister of Defense asks for an additional 10 billion euros

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius also reaffirmed this Sunday, in an interview with the public broadcaster ARD, that the country’s Armed Forces need more funds, “otherwise we will not be able to carry out tasks that have not been carried out for thirty years”. noting that the discrepancy is also due to the period before the start of the war in Ukraine.

The Social Democratic Party (SPD) minister, currently Germany’s most popular politician, wants to increase his portfolio budget by 10 billion euros (R$55 billion), but it’s not clear yet where this money would come from and there are disputes within the party itself about the priority to be given to military spending in the face of social demands in the country.

Pistorius also said that around 30 billion euros from the special fund had already been committed in contract expenditure, and said that new contracts for the purchase of self-propelled howitzers should be concluded by the end of March.

bl (dpa, ots)

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