The candidates to lead Germany’s next government are avoiding telling voters painful truths before Sunday’s crucial general election about Russia’s war in Ukraine, the coming disengagement of the US from Europe and the huge defence funding that is needed. Instead, the debate has largely focused on how to revive the ailing German economy after two years of recession and how to control migration, which has fuelled support for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland.
The conservative CDU/CSU leader, Friedrich Merz, has swerved speaking about the need for massive borrowing to pay for a surge in defence spending because many of his supporters oppose extra debt. The Social Democratic (SPD) chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is dodging discussion of sending German troops to Ukraine as part of a possible European security force if a ceasefire agreement is reached because part of his political base is either anti-militarist or Russia-friendly. After an emergency European summit on Ukraine in Paris on Monday, an irritable Scholz said talk of boots on the ground was “highly inappropriate”.
Neither of the main contenders to run Europe’s largest economy dares tell the domestic electorate just how dire Germany’s security situation is looking, now that Donald Trump is pursuing a quick deal with Vladimir Putin – apparently largely on Moscow’s terms – to stop the fighting in Ukraine and draw down US forces from Europe.
“Nobody wants to get caught speaking the truth before the election,” says Jan Techau, a former defence ministry speechwriter who is now director of Europe at the consultancy Eurasia Group. “In the worst-case scenario, if Trump pulls off this deal with Putin and carves up Europe into spheres of influence, Germany is very exposed.”
Unlike France and the UK, Germany does not have its own nuclear deterrent, and its armed forces are rusty and understaffed after three decades of self-disarmament since the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is struggling to fully equip a brigade of 5,000 troops to deploy in Lithuania as part of Nato’s deterrent presence.
Scholz declared a Zeitenwende (turning point) within days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and created a €100bn (£82bn) special fund to buy defence equipment. But he failed to follow up and convince Germans that times have truly changed and that the country must shed its postwar aversion to all things military. While military and intelligence officials say Russia could be ready to attack a Nato country by 2030, experts say it will take decades for Germany to fix its forces at the current rate.
“Even the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine has not created a sense of urgency in Germany – a sense that time to rebuild the military is not infinite,” says Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff of the German Council on Foreign Relations. The Kiel Institute for the World Economy has calculated that, at the current procurement pace, it would take nearly 100 years until the army had as many artillery howitzers as it possessed in 2004.
When the special fund runs out at the end of 2027, it will leave a €30bn a year budget hole just to keep defence spending at Nato’s current target of 2% of GDP. It will take almost double that amount to reach the likely objective of 3% or more, which allied leaders are expected to set in June. If Trump starts pulling US troops out of Europe, the bill will rise even higher.
Merz has said if he wins the election, he will start by cutting wasteful welfare spending and kickstart economic growth with tax cuts before considering extra borrowing. He has hinted that he is open to reforming the constitutional “debt brake” that severely limits government deficits to create more fiscal space for defence investment, and perhaps even to joint borrowing with European partners to fund common defence equipment.
The conservative frontrunner has blasted Scholz for his lack of leadership in the EU and has vowed to restore Germany’s damaged relations with France and Poland, work more closely with the UK and take a lead in Europe’s response to the war in Ukraine. Unlike Scholz, he supports supplying Kyiv with long-requested Taurus medium-range missiles able to hit targets inside Russia, subject to agreement among European partners. A close parliamentary colleague says Merz is deeply pro-European and Atlanticist, and understands that Germany will have to borrow fast to boost defence.
However, the real questions are whether he will have sufficient political capital to borrow massively for defence and to fix Germany’s broken infrastructure; whether he will have the parliamentary super-majority needed to reform the debt brake; whether he has the sense of urgency that has been largely missing during the past three years of centre-left government; and how far his likely SPD coalition partners will let him go in squeezing welfare to pay for defence.
By failing to prepare public opinion for the coming storm, Merz is storing up trouble for himself when the time comes, very soon, to make wrenching choices on public spending and borrowing.
Paul Taylor is a senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre
