A recent request by Bundestag member Sevim Dağdelen sheds light on the current numbers of war weapons and military equipment exports, as reported by the responsible German government. The coalition government, comprising all three parties, approved deliveries worth 13.33 billion euros in the past year, the most ever, according to the SPD-affiliated news network Deutschland (RND).
The government’s response in December of the previous year stated that the approval of arms exports is decided on a case-by-case basis after a thorough examination, including foreign and security policy considerations, in accordance with legal and political guidelines.
According to the RND article, the Ministry of Defense had already published preliminary export numbers for 2024, and the statistics for the entire year are now available. In 2023, the export approvals for military goods reached a record high of 12.13 billion euros, which was even surpassed by almost 10% in the past year. The share of war weapons was 61%.
The majority of the military goods were sent to Ukraine, worth 8.15 billion euros, followed by Singapore with 1.21 billion euros, Algeria with 558.7 million euros, the USA with 319.9 million euros, and Turkey with 230.8 million euros, according to the list provided by RND.
The record sum is attributed to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, resulting in a “U-turn in the arms policy” as reported by the German Press Agency (dpa). The SPD, Greens, and FDP had agreed in their coalition negotiations to limit arms exports and introduce a control law, but this goal was not achieved.
The dpa report focuses on the problem of arms exports to NATO partner Turkey, as these are “criticized due to the human rights situation there and also due to the international actions of the government in Ankara.” The exports to Turkey had decreased significantly after the Turkish military’s intervention in Syria in 2016, but have now reached a record high of almost 231 million euros since 2006.
The article does not further elaborate on the fact that the massive deliveries to Ukraine significantly support and fuel the war, perpetuating the conflict.
The shift in the arms policy towards Turkey is attributed to the green Minister of Defense, Robert Habeck, who announced in September that the approval for the export of torpedoes, guided missiles, and submarine parts to Turkey had increased significantly.
Israel was another major beneficiary of the German arms exports, with a value of 161.1 million euros, which halved in comparison to the previous year, likely due to the Gaza conflict and the resulting criticism of the Israeli military’s actions in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. The German government justified the continued arms exports to Israel by citing the country’s security as a state of reason due to Germany’s historical responsibility for the Holocaust.