The three bottlenecks complicating Germany’s
rearmament
BERLIN — Chancellor Friedrich Merz promised a year ago
that Germany would have “the strongest army in Europe,” but turning words into
tanks, missiles and planes is proving to be very difficult.
The buildup is a direct result of Russia's full-scale
invasion of Ukraine over four years ago — prompting Berlin to unleash billions
to turn the Bundeswehr back into a military capable of fighting a war.
In one crucial step aimed at speeding rearmament, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius on Wednesday moved to
reorganize the Bundeswehr’s procurement agency.
Pistorius acknowledged the challenge of revamping an
arms-buying system designed for caution and civilian control into one able to
deal with a defense budget rising “by considerable
billions.”
He compared the reform to open-heart surgery, saying:
“This is not a small operation ... at the same time, we do not have years.”
After the Cold War, Germany's Bundeswehr fell into
chronic neglect and underinvestment, hobbled by regulations and obsolete
equipment. Now, military planners are trying to scrap that legacy.
While money is no longer a worry thanks to sound
public finances and legal changes that are unleashing hundreds of billions of
euros in new spending, the task of building a new German military is still
hampered by defense industry production bottlenecks,
arms companies complaining about a lack of long-term procurement contracts and
government procedures unsuited to the new defense
surge.
Slow procurement
German procurement is built to make equipment legally
defensible, technically safe and usable for decades. But those safeguards can
become barriers.
The ponderous procurement agency — known as BAAINBw — has 12,900 employees and is responsible for
buying, developing, testing, contracting, upgrading and managing military
equipment.
Even the BAAINBw's
president, Annette Lehnigk-Emden, sees the need for speed. In an interview with
the German civil service magazine dbb, she said her office had thrown “about 80 of around
160 procedural rules overboard,” adding: “Time is now the guiding factor.”
That's what Pistorius hopes to unlock with Wednesday's
reform. But outside watchdogs say the issues won't be easy to fix.
Kay Scheller, the president of Germany’s federal audit
office, told Bild
that Bundeswehr procurement had become a “system of organized
irresponsibility,” arguing that there is a culture of ducking responsibility
rather than making fast decisions.
In his annual report,
Henning Otte, the Bundestag’s parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces,
described the procurement regulations as “extremely complex.”
The dilemma is that Germany cannot simply rip out the
safeguards that make procurement slow. Those controls exist to protect
soldiers, ensure value for taxpayers and preserve parliament’s authority over
military spending.
Christoph Schmid, the Social Democrats’ top defense lawmaker, cautioned against blaming bureaucracy
alone. “There is also a responsibility of the companies to actually deliver
what they have promised,” he said.
A lack of long-term contracts
Germany has one of the world's leading defense industries. Its military production champion,
Rheinmetall, now makes more artillery shells than the United States, boosting
production from 70,000 a year before Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine,
to 1.1 million shells now.
But there are still problems for industry in reaching
the production levels needed by the Bundeswehr.
An analysis by
Strategy& Germany, PwC’s strategy consulting arm,
said Germany will need from €74 billion to €139 billion in new defense equipment each year by 2035, while domestic
industry can supply only €22 billion to €52 billion.
Hans Christoph Atzpodien, head of Germany’s defense industry association, pushed back against the
study’s conclusion. “The impression could be that our industry may not be able
to adequately meet these challenges and tasks,” he said. “That is simply not
true.”
But he said companies need to receive “clear guidance
on the quantities and types of products required, as well as the timelines
involved” before they invest in new factories.
While businesses want certainty, the government wants
them to take the plunge and expand production on their own.
“We need a defense industry
that will not only deliver on time, but plan ahead,” Pistorius said last year.
Antiquated procedures
Under German rules, any Bundeswehr procurement project
worth more than €25 million must go through the Bundestag’s budget committee.
That reflects Germany’s postwar political culture, in which military power and
spending are kept under close democratic control.
But now it means Berlin is trying to rearm by using a
system designed to prevent quick decisions.
Green budget rapporteur Sebastian Schäfer said Germany
is trying to close old capability gaps and modernize legacy systems while
adapting to a battlefield reshaped by drones, software and electronic warfare.
There remains “a real need for reform” to ensure the
huge sums now available are “ultimately implemented wisely.”
For Andreas Mattfeldt, a Christian Democratic lawmaker
who oversees the defense budget, rising spending
makes scrutiny more important. In a post on X, he
argued for “consistent capability controlling and more competition in
procurement.”
Mattfeldt and his Social
Democratic counterpart Andreas Schwarz are using their powerful budget
committee roles to challenge spending they view as inefficient.
Their list includes projects that the military sees as
crucial — including a mobile reconnaissance system and a naval laser weapon
contract.
The ruling coalition is trying to speed up
parliamentary approval without junking the existing system. A new Bundeswehr
planning law is supposed to spell out what counts as “adequate equipment” for
the military and how the money should be provided.
The details on the legislation haven't been settled,
leaving the question open as to whether the updated law can actually
shift Germany from project-by-project procurement toward long-term
rearmament planning.
Florian Dorn, the Christian Democratic lawmaker
responsible for procurement in the defense committee,
agreed reform is needed, but “expressly not at the expense of parliamentary
control.”
But with growing alarm about the possibility of a
Russian attack happening at the same time as the U.S. withdraws troops from
Europe, there is little time for Germany to revamp its slow-moving arms-buying
machine.
“We have to remain realistic: arms production in
Germany was not designed over decades for such a rapid build-up of
capabilities,” said Dorn.
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(Chris Lunday - www.politico.eu)