(Berlin) Aid to Ukraine to be cut: Germany, the second largest contributor after the United States, plans to halve its military spending in favor of Kyiv in 2025, banking on the money generated by frozen Russian assets to continue supporting the country.
The government of Olaf Scholz, in search of budgetary savings, does not foresee “additional aid” to the 4 billion euros included in its draft budget for next year to help Kyiv militarily, a parliamentary source indicated to AFP on Saturday.
There will also be no additional funding for Kyiv this year, beyond the €8 billion of funding already approved.
The decision was agreed between the Social Democratic (SPD) Chancellor and the Liberal Party’s Finance Minister Christian Lindner, the newspaper reported. Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS).
It is already having consequences: at present “no new orders are being placed for Ukraine, because they are no longer funded,” Andreas Schwarz, a member of the budget committee and a specialist in defence issues, told the weekly.
According to the FAS, it was not possible to finance an IRIS-T air defense system for Kyiv in July. The Defense Ministry also wanted to order its artillery ammunition and drones this year, outside the 2024 budget, the newspaper claims.
Russian assets
Faced with the outcry, the Ministry of Finance said on Saturday that it was ready to “examine the provision of additional resources in the short term” on a case-by-case basis, depending on needs.
However, this decision adds uncertainty about the future of military support for Kyiv, while American military aid is also at risk if Republican Donald Trump is elected to the White House.
“The security of Europe depends on Germany’s ability and political will to continue to play a leading role in supporting Ukraine,” Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Oleksii Makeiev said on Saturday.
Berlin is only planning a ceiling of three billion euros for 2026, and more than half a billion euros per year for 2027 and 2028, according to the FAS.
To compensate, Germany is counting on “the creation, within the framework of the G7 and the European Union, of a financial instrument using frozen Russian assets,” a source within the Ministry of Finance told AFP.
Ukraine’s allies have been working for months on a mechanism that would allow some of the $300 billion in frozen Russian assets worldwide to be used to support Kyiv in its war against the Russian military.
But for the moment, no concrete implementation has been initiated.
Berlin, however, is “assuming that these funds will be usable from 2025,” added the parliamentary source.
“The West, and therefore Germany as the largest European contributor, will not relax its support for Ukraine,” German liberal MP Karsten Klein, a member of the budget committee, assured AFP.
The fact remains that the Minister of Finance expressly wrote on August 5 to his counterpart for Defense Boris Pistorius (SPD) to ask him to “guarantee” that the ceiling of 4 billion budgeted for next year will be respected, according to the FAS.
“Donald Trump Style”
The 2025 budget project was the subject of heated discussions within the tripartite coalition between liberals, environmentalists and social democrats.
Mr Lindner has called on his counterparts to make savings in order to comply with the “debt brake”, a constitutional rule that aims to prevent the state from taking on too much debt.
The budget still needs to be discussed in parliament before it is adopted by the end of the year.
The opposition Christian Democrats (CDU), which are riding high in national polls ahead of regional elections in September that pose a high risk for coalition parties in several eastern states, are aiming to put pressure on the government during budget talks in the fall.
“The coalition is playing politics in the style of Donald Trump by stopping any further aid to Ukraine because of a domestic political dispute,” CDU MP Norbert Röttgen complained on X on Saturday.