Military spending

German defense budget angers critics — including the defense minister

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Cabinet has approved a draft federal budget considered so insufficient for the armed forces by Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen that she submitted a formal note of protest along with her vote.
The unusual move pits the defense chief, a member of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, against finance minister and vice chancellor Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party, who crafted the budget primarily with an eye on domestic measures and the premise of incurring no additional debt.
The defense ministry stands to get €38.5 billion in 2018, which is roughly €1.5 billion more than last year, and €41.5 billion in 2019. That trajectory would bring Germany’s share of defense spending measured against gross domestic product to 1.28 percentage points in the next few years, Scholz told reporters in Berlin.