Status: 08/31/2022 1:56 p.m
Germany approved armaments worth 9.4 billion euros in 2021 – more than ever before. Most of these were approved by the previous grand coalition. This trend is likely to continue in 2022 – because of the Ukraine war.
The approvals for arms exports by the federal government reached a high in the past year. In 2021, individual licenses amounting to almost 9.4 billion euros were granted, according to the arms export report approved by the Federal Cabinet on Wednesday. This is “the highest annual approval value to date”. In 2020, the volume was 5.8 billion euros. Against the background of the Ukraine war, there is a significant increase again this year.
The figures for 2021 refer “essentially to approval decisions that were made before the current federal government took office,” says the arms export report. Only about three percent or 309 million euros fell during the tenure of the traffic light government, which was in office from the beginning of December 2021.
24 percent of exports to third countries
According to the responsible Federal Ministry of Economics, 36.4 percent of the total value for 2021 was attributable to approvals for deliveries to EU, NATO and NATO-equivalent countries, i.e. Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Switzerland. Export licenses were issued for so-called third countries in the amount of 5.95 billion euros (2020: 2.92 billion euros). A significant part of this was granted to Egypt with 4.34 billion euros. It was mainly about goods for the navy and air defense.
According to the Federal Ministry of Economics, the export of armaments worth almost 5.1 billion euros had already been approved by August 24 this year. In the same period of the previous year, the value was around 2.9 billion euros. According to the information, 76 percent of the armaments licenses granted in the current year related to EU, NATO or NATO-equivalent countries. As the federal government emphasized, the third-country share of 24 percent so far is “considerably below that of previous years”. Accordingly, the value for 2021 was 63.6 percent and for 2020 50.1 percent.
Arms exports for 686 million euros for Ukraine
The focus of the permits for third countries in 2022 was on deliveries to Ukraine, it said. It was about weapons worth 686 million euros by the end of August. According to the information, this corresponded to 56 percent of the value of all permits granted to third countries so far this year.
In the report, as in the coalition agreement, the federal government made up of SPD, Greens and FDP committed itself to a “restrictive approach to arms exports”. To this end, “guard rails” should be anchored in a planned arms control law, it said. This means that the federal government’s arms export control will be enshrined in law “for the first time”.