Last Updated on 05/09/2024 by Arun jain
Germany is reportedly considering treating motorway repairs as defense spending in an effort to hit back 2 percent of NATO’s GDP target.
Berlin argued that repairs to the bridge should be included in defense spending because its public roads are used to transport tanks and other military vehicles, according to a report in the Süddeutsche newspaper.
Ingo Gadechens, an MP from the centre-right Christian Democratic Union Party, told a German daily newspaper: “Now motorways are also considered defense-related – the fact is that the government has no idea about the real military importance of our motorways.”
Examples of NATO defense spending Allows for a broader definitionwhich allows countries to report certain health and infrastructure spending as defense spending.
After the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, NATO set a target for defense spending to hit 2 percent of GDP. Most NATO members just hit that level For the first time this year.
In July, Germany A figure of €91 billion (£77 billion) was announced For the coalition, the total pushed its defense budget to 2.1 percent of GDP for the first time since the early 1990s.
That figure raised eyebrows because it is close to double the size of the €52 billion allocated to defense in Germany’s domestic budget. Germany also includes money it gives Ukraine to buy weapons from its defense industry in its overall figure.
A growing amount of what Berlin reports to NATO as spending is “classified,” meaning there is little transparency about what is being included.
In 2025, Germany is planning Cut military aid to Ukraine in half So it will have to find new sources of defense spending to meet NATO’s targets.
As several NATO members increased their defense budgets ahead of a summit in Washington in July, questions have been raised about whether Western capitals are using accounting tricks to reach the target.
In a speech a few days after the Russian invasion in February 2022, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged to benchmark Germany’s military spending at 2 percent of GDP in the future.
“We have set this goal not only because we promised our friends and allies… we are doing this for ourselves, for our own security,” he said at the time.
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