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