Handelsblatt author Thomas Hanke analyzes interesting data and trends from all over the world in the column.
(Photo: Klawe Rzeczy)
Germany spends a lot of money for the “turning point” towards better defense. But things are going too slowly: On Monday there was even a “munitions summit” because the troops no longer had enough ammunition. What is more serious, however, is that Germany and other EU countries are burning billions of euros because they are arming purely nationally and not together.
“If each member state increases its defense spending by investing on its own, the result will be a waste of money, multiplying existing weaknesses and unnecessary overlaps,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell recently warned.
The Europeans spend around half of US spending on armaments, but they only achieve ten or at best 15 percent of American defense capacities, according to a study by the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC) back in 2006 for the European Parliament. Not enough is developed, produced and ordered jointly.
16 years later, things are not better, but worse: The proportion of European projects has not increased, but decreased, says the European Armaments Agency EDA.
One army wants an armored personnel carrier with eight seats, while the other needs nine. Eight EU customers have 17 different versions of the NH 90 helicopter alone.
This bothers Airbus as an important supplier: “We see standardization as an essential prerequisite for efficient fleet management.” But the heads of government maintain their own district, emphasizing the alleged importance of a national defense industry. That doesn’t prevent silly pranks like having ammunition for a German tank made in Switzerland, which they don’t hand over in the event of a tension.
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Billions could be wasted pointlessly
“If you consistently go down the path of European cooperation, you should only be guided by the question: How do taxpayers get the best results?” says Max Muschler from BICC. Then one would have to agree on a model of a weapon system, the national armaments industries would shrink. “The dismantling would have to happen everywhere, but the taxpayer would have the advantage,” argues the BICC expert.
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If, on the other hand, the predominantly national procurement remains, then “25 to 36 billion euros of the 100 billion euro special fund for the Bundeswehr could be spent pointlessly,” calculated the Hamburg conflict researcher Michael Brzoska in a study for Greenpeace in May. Meanwhile, he expects a little less wastage, since Germany is likely to spend a large part of the funding on finished products – F-35 bombers and Chinook helicopters – from the US.
A large part of the special fund for the Bundeswehr is to flow into American-made equipment.
(Photo: AP)
But that way, sovereign European defense won’t work either. That would make progress “if politicians would name a European main contractor who would look for his suppliers,” argues Brzoska. That would be a break with the previous system.
Because what has so far been known as European cooperation follows the principle of “juste retour”: In the case of a joint project, each country wants exactly as many funds to flow back to its own industry as it spends. This keeps waste and duplication of effort.
The assertiveness of the national lobbies is paradoxical. From an economic point of view, the armaments companies only play a marginal role. Even a national champion like Rheinmetall, with annual sales of five to six billion, does not even make it into the top 100 in the German economy. According to experts, jobs in economically weak regions, where companies often produce, are the pound they use politically.
Germany and Europe will only get more security for their increased defense spending if the taxpayers work against the waste of billions.
More: Worsely positioned than before the Ukraine war – why the expansion of the Bundeswehr is faltering