Germany to halve military aid for Ukraine despite possible Trump White
House
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[July 17, 2024]
By Maria Martinez and Holger Hansen
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany will halve military aid for Ukraine next
year, even with the possibility that Republican candidate Donald Trump
could return to the White House and curb support for Kyiv.
German aid to Ukraine will be cut to 4 billion euros ($4.35 billion) in
2025 from around 8 billion euros in 2024, according to a draft of the
2025 budget seen by Reuters.
Germany hopes Ukraine will be able to meet the bulk of its military
needs with the $50 billion in loans from the proceeds of frozen Russian
assets agreed by the Group of Seven, and that funds earmarked for
armaments will not be fully used.
Washington pushed to "front load" the loans to give Ukraine a big lump
sum now.
Officials say EU leaders agreed to the idea in part because it reduces
the chance of Ukraine being short of funds if Trump returns to the White
House.
Alarm bells rang across Europe this week after Trump picked Senator J.D.
Vance, who opposes military aid for Ukraine and warned Europe will have
to rely less on the United States to defend the continent, as his
candidate for vice president.
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Trump sparked fierce criticism from Western officials for suggesting he
would not protect countries that failed to meet the transatlantic
military alliance's defence spending targets and would even encourage
Russia to attack them.
Germany has faced criticism for repeatedly missing a NATO target of
spending 2% of its economic output on defence.
DEPLETED MILITARY STOCKS
The stocks of Germany's armed forces, already run down by decades of
underinvestment, have been further depleted by arms supplies to Kyiv.
So far, Berlin has donated three Patriot air defence units to Kyiv, more
than any other country, bringing down the number of Patriot systems in
Germany to nine.
Germany's fractious coalition of left-leaning Social Democrats,
pro-business liberals and ecologist Greens has struggled to comply with
NATO's spending target due to self-imposed rules that limit the amount
of state borrowing they can take on.
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![](../images/071724PIX/news_n30.jpg)
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelenskiy pose for a picture during the Ukraine Recovery Conference
in Berlin, Germany, June 11, 2024. REUTERS/Nadja Wohlleben/File
Photo
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2017/Jul/22/images/ads/current/rohlfs_lda_072017.png)
Although military aid to Ukraine will be cut, Germany will comply
with the NATO target of spending 2% of GDP on defence in 2025, with
a total of 75.3 billion euros.
Days after Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz
announced a "Zeitenwende" – German for historic turning point - with
a 100 billion euro special fund to bring the military up to speed.
From this special fund, there will be 22.0 billion euros more for
defence, plus 53.3 billion euros in the regular budget, still less
than that sought by Defence Minister Boris Pistorius.
The budget for 2025 comes with the mid-term financial planning until
2028, the year when the armed forces' special fund to meet NATO's
minimum spending goals is due to run out and 80 billion will be
needed for defence, as noted in the financial plan.
In 2028, there is a gap of 39 billion euros in the regular budget,
of which 28 billion euros are needed to comply with the NATO target
without the special fund, sources from the finance ministry said.
Decisions on how the hole will be plugged are not likely to be taken
until after the 2025 election.
"The 80 billion euros that have been put on display for 2028 simply
do not exist," said Ingo Gaedechens, member of the parliament's
budget committee from the conservative opposition party CDU.
"The coalition is not even trying to cover this up but are openly
admitting it."
($1 = 0.9192 euros)
(Reporting by Maria Martinez and Holger Hansen, additional reporting
by Sabine Siebold, editing by Miranda Murray and Christina Fincher)
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