You can thank our libertarian minister of finance and his debt-ceiling fetish for that. He’s also the one who demanded that our 100 billion fond for the armed forces has to include VAT tax, which effectively lowers it to 84 billion.

He’s also the guy who likes to protect the more than 20 billion in subsidies for fossil fuels or the car industry, yet wants to cut social services by 20 billion.

I would not call that a U-turn:

Instead, the government pledges to meet the 2 percent target on average over a five-year period, as already set out in the recently published National Security Strategy.

Seems more like the same direction, just on a parallel lane.

On the one hand debatable, as it doesn’t come 100% in line with the wording of the NATO guideline. On the other hand a practical course to measure across 5 years, as in some years there are larger procurements required than in others and overall the 2% are still met.

Atlantik-Brücke much?

What’s going on in Germany regarding war and the army? It seems that when it comes to Ukraine help, EU defense or its own army you get an info one day and retract a few days later.

The authoritarian pro military industrial complex block on lemmy is obviously not happy about this