Status: 28.12.2022 8:49 a.m
The Bundeswehr is to be modernized with a 100 billion special pot for weapons and equipment – the military commissioner Högl demands a regular report for this. To make it faster, she wants to do without complicated rules.
The military commissioner Eva Högl demands a regular report on the modernization of the Bundeswehr from the 100 billion special fund for weapons and equipment approved by parliament. With such a regularly updated report on what the 100 billion euros are being spent on, what has been ordered and what has been achieved, she wants to ensure more transparency. Högl: “We have something like that for the support services for the Ukraine, for example. I think a regular inventory like this, a report on the turning point, would make sense for the topic of special funds.”
In order to make faster progress in fully equipping the armed forces, the existing, complicated set of rules should be dispensed with at least temporarily, the SPD politician told the dpa news agency. “The 100 billion euros must not be awarded in the existing structures and procedures. Then we will not make any progress,” says Högl. It is up to the Department of Defense to make a proposal.
Full equipment should progress quickly
In her opinion, there is a great and justified expectation in the armed forces that the full equipment will now make rapid progress. In the corona pandemic, Germany was able to change a set of rules very quickly.
“We are in a situation now, there is a war in Ukraine, we have to adapt our rules. And that doesn’t mean more and more complicated, but accelerate and purge it vigorously. It can be agreed for a limited time and at European level,” she said. And: “Without a separate set of rules for this situation, we will not be able to spend the 100 billion euros as quickly and in a concentrated manner as is necessary.” In the Bundestag that is a majority.
The sticking point is the staff
The Commissioner for the Armed Forces warned not only to look at the equipment, but also to look more closely at the personnel. “We talk a lot about material, but the sticking point is the personnel, the Bundeswehr consists first and foremost of 182,000 soldiers,” she said. You experience the Bundeswehr as very burdened. Högl: “The annual report of the military commissioner has been saying for years: 20,000 posts are vacant and in many places the right person is not in the right post at the right time.”