DEVELOPMENT-GERMANY: Defence Spending ‘Marginalising’ Aid Budget

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Ramesh Jaura

BONN, Dec 15 1994 (IPS) - The German government’s plans for a bigger hike in defence spending than in bilateral aid next year has sparked protests from the opposition and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

The blueprint undergoing a second reading in the federal parliament ‘Bundestag’ till Friday, envisages an increase of 670 million marks (430 million dollars) in the defence ministry’s budget for next year. That would put defence spending at 47.9 billion marks (30.71 billion dollars) in 1995.

The Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) would on the other hand get a 350 million mark (224 million dollar) increase, represented by a budget of 8.255 billion marks (5.29 billion dollars) in 1995.

This, said the spokesman of the opposition Social Democratic Party (SPD) Ingomar Hauchler, provides “fresh proof” that development policy was being “marginalised”.

His colleague Ingrid Matthaeus-Maier, SPD’s budget policy spokeswoman, said the projected rise in defence spending could be interpreted to mean that in the view of the coalition government headed by Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the days of the “peace dividend” were over.

The government had taken time to curtail the defence budget from 54 billion marks (34.62 billion dollars) four years ago to 47.2 billion marks (30.26 billion dollars) in 1993 after the Cold War ended with the reunification of Germany and disappearance of the east bloc of communist-ruled states in eastern Europe.

“And now only two years later you want to increase the defence spending again,” she told Finance Minister Theo Waigel, adding that 670 million marks should have gone for future-oriented activities and not for weapons.

“The fact is that defence is acquiring an increasingly important place in the minds of policy planners in Bonn, and Germany’s allies — who warned of the German military threat until a few years ago — are now pressing Germany to join military missions,” said Christa Bauer from the ‘Grey Panthers’, an NGO devoted to social affairs.

She was referring to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) request for Bonn’s military involvement in the Balkans to ensure an eventual withdrawal of U.N. peace-keeping force in Bosnia-Hercegovina.