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Germany slashes Ukraine funding in savings push

Germany, which overcame its initial reluctance to support Ukraine to become the country’s biggest European supplier of military aid, looks poised to change course as the finance minister said the government would slash future assistance by half in order to fulfill other spending priorities.

That appeared to be Berlin’s unequivocal message to Ukraine on Wednesday as the government detailed its preliminary 2025 budget, in which military aid to Ukraine is slated to be cut by half to just €4 billion, according to a draft seen by POLITICO.

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anonymous ,

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angstylittlecatboy , (edited )

I cannot exaggerate to you that this 100% fulfils the negative perceptions of European governments that American isolationists have. The article says they cut Ukraine funding to fund social programs. The right-wing narrative in America is that needing to have the huge military is why we have a weak social safety net (not true btw, med4all for example would save Uncle Sam money) which is framed as “we pay for European social programs.” But here’s a government… literally cutting military spending in the middle of aiding a real war that could be highly consequential to the country in question to fund social programs.

How is an American supposed to argue in favor of funding the defense of Europe when the richest country in Europe doesn’t want to fund the defense of Europe? If Germany gets to decide to go for “Germany first,” how long until “Britain first?” “France first?” “Italy first?” Will Ukraine funding just be a hot potato that everyone will claim is important but nobody actually wants to do?

When European countries started raising military spending in response to a threat, it weakened American isolationist arguments. But this strengthens them. I hope no other European countries pull this shit.

freeman ,

There is no Europe entity. There’s the EU and NATO with Ukraine not being a member in any of them.

I don’t have any more special connection to Ukrainians than you have because I am European. They are foreigners to me just as they are to you. This goes for most Europeans except maybe for Slavic people.

The rest support Ukraine for the same reasons the US do. Because Russia is a geopolitical rival. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is immoral but it’s not the actual reason for any support of Ukraine. EU countries and the US can live happily with people getting massacred in other countries with Gaza being the most prominent but far from the only example.

So Germany will support Ukraine up to the point its not inconvenient for them. They don’t have any special kinship nor any legal obligation to assist more.

If Russia had performed better in the war Germany probably would feel urged to spend more both in Ukraine to win time to rearm itself. As things stand, Russia cannot threaten Germany and whether it occupies parts of Ukraine is not the end of the world (for Germany).

The US won’t “stop funding the defense” of EU or Taiwan or any other country. That’s the basis of US power. Trump might be compromised, other right wongers might be interested in trading USA’s dominance in the world for remaking of according to their fantasies but they are going to meet pushback from the establishment, including right wingers, including the military. Not going to be alright in any sense but the US military won’t just withdraw.

barsoap , (edited )

But here’s a government… literally cutting military spending

Germany is increasing military spending. Not by as much as the defence ministry would like, but it’s definitely not a cut.

As to the Ukraine aid the government is pointing at those Russian central bank funds, interest on those more than makes up for the shortfall: They’re in fact estimating that the money they budgeted won’t even be used up now that that stuff is available and, unsurprisingly, has priority. Why should Germany spend money when we can make the Russians spend it.

How is an American supposed to argue in favor of funding the defense of Europe

Seriously? Don’t bother. We’ve written you off as fickle bastards long ago and are completely prepared for a Trump re-election and the US going full isolationist. Russia will react with a renewment of effort, Europe won’t falter, Putin won’t know what’s happening (completely convinced that you somehow rule us), he will be replaced not by kinder but at least a bit saner people, war will end.

And definitely don’t wait for us to shape our policy to be convenient for your own political struggles. We’ve got more important stuff to do.

Also, do have a look here. Germany spent around 40bn so far, the US 70bn. The US has about 4x the population. We’re spending more than twice as much as the US per capita, and that’s not even counting in that most of what the US sent was military hardware that they would have decommissioned, anyway, valued at replacement cost, not what it actually cost you: Negative amounts, because you don’t have to spend money on actually decommissioning it.

MrMakabar ,

The last budget also only had €4billion for Ukraine aid. That was increased by €3billion to the €7 billion actually send in the end. The reason for that is simple. We do not know how the war will continue or even if. So the German government signs big deals with the military industry, which give the industry the ability to set up large scale production, but allow the German government to stop ordering more weapons quickly. Then additional funding is approved as need be. So if somebody takes Putins job and makes peace with Ukraine, Germany does not send unneeded arms to Ukraine.

Sorry, but that is the background. German government communication sucks for a lot of reasons.

empireOfLove2 ,
@empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

the only thing that Germany does better than complex overengineering is government bureaucracy.

Raptor_007 ,

So this is just a public bluff, right?

…right?

agressivelyPassive ,

Unfortunately, the current finance minister is really that stupid.

Absolute braindead wannabe neoliberal.

pleb_maximus ,

Sadly he isn’t a wannabe neoliberal, but just a neoliberal.
Jut all around terrible in general.

Linkerbaan ,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

Well on the bright side, Japan just got a 3 billion dollar loan for Ukraine.

Country is at the height of needing aid but free money dried up. Now Ukraine can start loaning money!

What’s that? We’re saddling Ukraine in debt they can never repay? Well guess they can accept an IMF deal and make Ukraine hand over their entire country for cheap. Almost looks like one of those Neocolonial IMF extortion deals we keep saddling African countries with haha ignore that.

BaldDude ,
@BaldDude@sh.itjust.works avatar
  • Please read with a very thick German accent

Well … you see, we would like to help, but there are just more important things in this budget.

Like the ~900m financial aid to India. (A country with a quite successful space program, and currently a part of Russia’s Oil laundering machine.)

Or like the ~600m financial aid to the PRC. (A country with a far superior space program than ours, and a weapons supplier to Russia.)

Oh and don’t forget the measly but oh so important 24m financial aid for bicycle paths in Peru.

So you see, there is simply nothing we can do, ukraine is just not important enough ¯_(ツ)_/¯

/s

  • Figures taken from memory and also from past budgets, so please enjoy with a grain a lot of salt
bassomitron ,

Sooo… All that talk at the NATO summit literally like 2 weeks ago was just complete bullshit?

Darukhnarn ,

No. However, the FDP are basically terrorists at this point and will stop at nothing to praise the „Schwarze Null“

hannesh93 ,
@hannesh93@feddit.org avatar

Don’t confuse the Schuldenbremse and the Schwarze Null

At least they allow for some debt - not like the CDU that celebrated their Schwarze Null in times where Germany would’ve made a profit from lending money at negative rates

FDP is still a terrorist party at the moment though

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Schwarze Nul

Damn it, Germans. Stop making everything in your language sound scary.

RidderSport ,
@RidderSport@feddit.org avatar

This is legitimately scary though. It haunts me in my dreams

autotldr Bot ,

This is the best summary I could come up with:

BERLIN — Germany, which overcame its initial reluctance to support Ukraine to become the country’s biggest European supplier of military aid, looks poised to change course as the finance minister said the government would slash future assistance by half in order to fulfill other spending priorities.

Speaking after the cabinet approved the draft budget, Finance Minister Christian Lindner said Ukraine would have to rely more on funds from “European sources” as well as hoped-for income from frozen Russian assets.

The decision to cut aid to Ukraine, which was first reported by Reuters, resolves a mystery surrounding the German coalition’s unexpected agreement over the budget following an all-night bargaining session two weeks ago.

Scholz’s government has dragged its feet on helping Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s onslaught, drawing ridicule for an early offer to send helmets weeks before the full-scale invasion.

“The many promises of the chancellor and his defense minister to continue to support Ukraine are turning out to be hollow phrases,” Ingo Gädechens, a lawmaker from the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), told POLITICO.

At the same time, the coalition has been at odds over how to finance its own military needs in order to fulfill Scholz’s promises to rebuild Germany’s armed forces and meet NATO’s annual spending target of 2 percent of GDP.

The original article contains 697 words, the summary contains 215 words. Saved 69%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

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