The German government, convinced by the Russian invasion of Ukraine to invest heavily in defense, is considering the acquisition of an Israeli missile protection system, the daily said on Sunday. Picture. The decision has not yet been formally taken, but the Social Democratic Party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the main formation of the ruling coalition, is in favor of it, specifies the most widely read daily in Germany.
“We need to better protect ourselves against the Russian threat. For this, we need a Germany-wide anti-missile shield quickly”, explains in Picture the rapporteur for the Bundestag for the defense budget, Andreas Schwarz. “The Israeli Arrow 3 system is a good solution,” he adds about this Israeli anti-missile device intended to counter long-range missiles.
The country wants to modernize its army
According to Picture, the system, inspired by the Israeli “Iron Dome”, would cost around 2 billion euros and could be operational from 2025 from three sites in Germany. The shield would even be powerful enough to also cover Poland, Romania and the Baltic countries.
“We can stretch the Iron Dome over our neighboring countries. We would thus play a key role for the security of Europe”, abounds Andreas Schwarz. After years of underinvestment, Germany made a historic U-turn at the end of February, due to the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army which came as a shock. Olaf Scholz announced on February 27, a few days after the Russian offensive, an exceptional envelope of 100 billion euros to modernize the army, and the objective of exceeding 2% of military expenditure in GDP.