The Bundestag’s budget committee must approve a significant increase in German military aid to Ukraine on Wednesday, a parliamentary source told AFP on Tuesday.
MEPs must decide in total on the release of 12 billion euros, both in arms deliveries directly to Kiev and in resupply for the German army, which has offloaded much of its stockpiles for the benefit of Ukraine over the past year.
If these funds are voted, the German aid will thus jump from an amount of approximately 3,000 million committed so far to around 15,000 million euros, including the amounts provided for the replacement of Bundeswehr equipment. The deputies will seize on Wednesday from 09:00 several proposals in this regard from the German Ministry of Finance.
A fund of 100,000 million euros
The German army should be able to benefit from some of these new funds this year, the same source said. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Germany has been engaged in an ambitious rearmament policy.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had promised a few days after the Russian attack a fund of 100 billion euros to fill the many gaps in the Bundeswehr. But the promised funds have not yet been released at this stage and the German military continues to suffer from many years of underinvestment.
Berlin, on the other hand, is one of the main contributors to kyiv’s military support. The German government thus confirmed on Monday the delivery to Ukraine of 18 Leopard 2 type 2A6 tanks, insistently demanded by the Ukrainian army.
Source: BFM TV
