Germanyʼs draft budget for 2025 calls for €4 billion in military aid to Ukraine instead of roughly €8 billion in 2024. This is probably due to the slow recovery of the economy after that yearʼs recession, which Germany overcame at the beginning of the year.
This is reported by Reuters, which got acquainted with the budget project.
Germanyʼs cabinet plans to approve its 2025 budget soon, expecting a strong economic recovery to help it close a €17 billion gap between projected spending and revenue.
The 2025 budget includes financial planning until 2028. By then, the Ukrainian Armed Forcesʼ special fund to meet NATOʼs minimum spending goals will expire.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced the fund a few days after Russiaʼs full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The special fund provides €100 billion to modernize the army and achieve the NATO standard of defense spending equivalent to 2% of GDP.
- It is worth noting that in the German draft budget for 2024, too little money was allocated for Ukraine, there was more than €5 billion missing. However, after long negotiations, Germany doubled its military support to Ukraine from €4 billion to €8 billion.