Germany is dramatically boosting its defence budget

Germany is dramatically boosting its defence budget in a bid to modernize its long-neglected military. Defence Minister Boris Pistorius aims to raise the regular annual budget to over €60 billion from 2025 – up ~€10 billion from previous plans – and keep it there for years. For context, Germany’s base defence budget in 2024 was €52 billion (supplemented by a one-off €100 billion special fund), and the fund will be depleted by 2028. The new €60+ billion target, roughly 2% of GDP, would institutionalize the post-Ukraine Zeitenwende in German spending. Notably, this move comes despite challenges in absorption: last year Berlin struggled to hit the 2% NATO goal because procurement processes couldn’t spend allocated funds fast enough. Germany loosened its constitutional debt brake to enable the earlier special fund, underscoring high-level commitment. Analysts see this as Germany finally stepping up: sustained spending at this level should help replace outdated equipment and boost NATO’s collective strength, provided bureaucratic bottlenecks (the “challenge… how the money can be spent in a timely way”) are resolved. Germany’s push is a bellwether in Europe, signaling that even fiscally conservative states are prioritizing defence.