Berlin mulling allocating $20.8 bln to deal with ammunition shortages

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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will hold Monday a meeting with ministries and advisers on the shortage of ammunition, the German armed forces are suffering from, German cabinet spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit said Monday.

Reportedly, the federal government will potentially allocate some $20.8 billion of public funds to replenish the army's supplies as Berlin continues pumping arms into Ukraine and suffers from economic woes.

German media reported last week that Scholz would hold an emergency meeting early this week to address ammunition shortages in the German army caused in part by Germany's endless stream of weapons to Ukraine and budget problems in the federal government.

"Of course, there will be a substantive discussion of the ammunition issue occupying us. It is in the perspective that the federal government and the Bundestag want to spend 20 billion euros [$20.8 billion] of the budget to replenish supplies," the spokesman Hebestreit told a press briefing, commenting on today's governmental meeting.

In every branch of the Bundeswehr, the nation's armed forces, there is a deficit of ammunition, according to German government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit, although the precise number of supplies is kept secret for security reasons.

"I perfectly understand that we will not answer the last question. Not because we cannot, but because it is classified information, " In response to a question about the ammunition's durability, the spokesman provided a briefing.

Hebestreit emphasized that ammunition shortages affect the Bundeswehr as a whole.

According to Col. Arne Collatz, head of the press division of the federal defense ministry of the nation, defense officials refrain from discussing precise ammunition stockpiles for "military security reasons."

At the same time, Collatz underlined that the defense ministry has increased defense spending and that it regularly discusses the shortage issue with industrial enterprises. The chief stated that the ammunition budget would increase from 296 million euros in 2015 to 1.12 billion euros ($1.16 billion) in 2023.

Germany has been a major supporter of Kiev's since the start of the war, with Ukraine becoming the second-largest importer of German weapons after Berlin approved the exportation of $584 million worth of weaponry to Ukraine within the first 6 months of 2022. 

Meanwhile, in the first half of the year, the EU supported Ukraine with €1.2 billion in loans and billions in arms and weapons deliveries, and in July it agreed to provide an assistance package worth €9 billion of which €1 billion were dispatched last summer and another €5 billion are already approved but not yet delivered.

By supplying weapons to Ukraine, Hebestreit argued earlier, Germany went against its longtime principle of not sending arms to a conflict zone. He further underlined that the German government always believed that Russia should not be allowed to win.

A German government official said earlier that the European Union sought to finance an aid package worth some 8 billion euros by September for Ukraine, which goes to show that the EU found it easier to finance arms than aid for refugees.

Despite pledging more assistance, senior EU officials admit that there will most likely be a "crunch point" in the fall or early winter when EU countries begin to feel acute domestic economic pain as a result of the crisis.

Germany has also been bearing the brunt of the Ukraine crisis more than anyone else, with the head of the Federal Network Agency, Klaus Müller, saying earlier in the month that though Germany has decent stockpiles of gas, the winter can be quite the long one for the country.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said a week earlier that German citizens would need to learn to be modest and accept the sacrifices and losses they are going through during the current crisis.

Meanwhile, Alternative for Germany party (AfD) co-chair Tino Chrupalla underlined that Germany won't be Europe's gas hub for the sale of hydrocarbons - instead, it will have to purchase Russian fossil fuels from other countries, including Turkey.

This comes despite Germany announcing in mid-October that its gas reserves have been filled up to 95% faster than anticipated.

Berlin has also implemented policies that permit the use of more coal-based energy and lower energy consumption in public structures.

Additionally, it has invested 1.50 billion euros ($1.46 billion) in the purchase of liquefied natural gas from Qatar and the United States, two of its key suppliers. Five new LNG terminals are also being developed for the purpose of importing LNG by sea.