Before most people here read an exaggerated article in the German media which main purpose is just to scare people and get a lot of attention and then draw the wrong conclusions from it, I would like to comment briefly on the German military aid to
#Ukraine planned for 2025.
Currently, the Ministry of Finance is said to have budgeted just over €4 billion for military assistance to Ukraine in the coming year (draft budget). That is around €3 billion less than in the current year, which of course sounds terrible at first.
However, I would like to point out that this was also the case last year, when there was a lot of panic after multiple newspapers published articles saying that Germany has budget issues and has only planned with €4 billion for military-related Ukraine aid.
The funds were later increased by around €3 billion and negotiations are currently underway to again increase the Ukraine aid by up to €4 billion. This means, that if everything goes according to plan, the original €4 billion will be around €10 billion at the end.
As far as 2025 is concerned, BILD reported, for example, that the German MoD is planning with €15 billion, i.e. €9 billion more than the Ministry of Finance has currently budgeted. According to
@Schwarz_MdB (Budget & Defence Committee in the Bundestag), at least the funds approved for this year should be earmarked for next year.
If we add everything up, we can assume that at least another €7 billion will be earmarked for 2025, and most likely even more than €10 billion. After all, we could see that the current funding in 2024 lasted only for half a year. It would therefore be completely absurd to plan for 2025 with less than 2024.
In my opinion/assessment, nobody should panic or get unnecessarily upset when he or she reads an article in this regard in the future (which I am sure will come at some point…). When it comes to money, especially amounts in the billions of euros, there are always negotiations.