How Germany fudges the math on NATO and Ukraine

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, the man tasked with modernizing the Bundeswehr, Germany's armed forces, has been in office for a year. He's the most popular minister in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's highly unpopular government.

But, shortly before the end of his first year on the job, plans for a major reform of Germany's armed forces, known as the "Zeitenwende" (turning point), were scaled back — again. In the federal budget for 2024, the government will barely reach NATO's  spending target. That's been heavily criticized by the largest opposition party, the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU).

NATO countries have committed themselves to spending 2% of their budgets on their armed forces each year. After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Chancellor Scholz promised his partners in Europe and the US that Germany would meet this target in the future.

The German army was promised an additional €100 billion ($108 billion) to modernize. This special fund, a separate budget approved by the German parliament, the Bundestag, was established primarily to purchase modern war equipment.

However, it has emerged that aid for Ukraine is now also coming from this budget. Germany plans to spend a total of €8 billion on weapons for Ukraine starting this year.

Are Ukraine aid figures 'embellished'?

The CDU has been sharply critical of this. "The special fund is being used for ongoing operations and support, in contrast to what was stipulated in the constitution, and not for building up the armed forces," foreign and security policy expert Roderich Kiesewetter, a CDU party member, complained to DW. "It really is a system of nontransparency, a system intended to give the impression that Germany can still get to the 2% target," Kiesewetter said.

Kiesewetter is also critical of how Germany calculates how much aid it gives to Ukraine. "The figures are embellished … We had to look closely at what had actually been delivered. And we found that it's between €4 billion and €5 billion — over the past two years," Kiesewetter explained.

"Another €8 billion have been announced for this year, but not delivered, and it would be very honest and helpful if the German government published what has been delivered and not just what was promised."

Germany tells yet another story when it comes to the international community. The government says it has sent more than €17 billion in aid to Ukraine. But according to Kiesewetter, that figure also includes social services for the more than 1 million Ukrainian refugees who are in Germany.

The German government relies on figures from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IFW), which tracks international aid to Ukraine. The Institute's "Ukraine Support Tracker" includes detailed information on the value of the armaments supplied to Ukraine, including Leopard tanks from Bundeswehr stocks.

Criticism from France

France has challenged the IFW's aid calculations, which put French aid to Ukraine at less than €1 billion over the past two years. This would put France in 13th place among supporters of Ukraine. The EU leads the list, followed by the US, Germany and the UK.

France traditionally keeps its arms industry data secret. But there are reportedly rumors in the German international security community that the French government has tried to talk to IFW researchers and questioned their figures. The IFW did not respond to DW's questions on this.

But France says that at least it's being honest. "France is proud that it delivers everything it promises, and that everything that is delivered works," said the French defense minister shortly after his return from a visit to the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

It has emerged that Ukraine can hardly deploy any of the Leopard 2 tanks supplied by Germany because of high maintenance requirements. Lecornu also announced that France would build and deliver 74 more Cesar artillery pieces for Ukraine this year.

NATO budget target tricks are nothing new

Security expert Nico Lange from the Munich Security Conference believes Germany offers too few purchase guarantees to the defense industry. In addition, the Bundeswehr's procurement bureaucracy has not been reformed in the two years since the "Zeitenwende" was announced.

"It's just not happening fast enough. There was a lost opportunity to say that this is the turning point, we have more money, we have a special fund, and now we are doing things differently," Lange said.

Above all, little has changed in Germany's calculations regarding the 2% target for NATO. Previous governments were also very creative, Christian Mölling from the German Council on Foreign Relations told DW.

According to Mölling's analysis, in the worst-case scenario, NATO has just five years to build its forces enough to deter Russia from attacking NATO territory, especially the Baltic states.

But he says that the fact that the German government is now including aid to Ukraine in its NATO budget target accounting "can also be considered legitimate." That's because the Ukrainian army is, albeit indirectly, defending NATO territory against Russia.

This article was originally written in German.

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