The Deutsche Bank has expressed its support for partially guaranteeing bank loans to defense firms. In a guest commentary for the “Handelsblatt” CEO Christian Sewing writes that public funds should be combined with private capital to finance the expansion of capacities. Banks and investors are ready to support the defense sector and the Deutsche Bank’s loan portfolio in the defense industry amounts to “a mid-two-digit billion.” In order to better meet the needs of the sector, the Deutsche Bank has recently created a specialized team for small and medium-sized defense companies. However, the bank’s financing capacity could be utilized even more effectively if it were combined with public institution guarantees or similar instruments. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Investment Bank mobilized 186 billion euros in investments with 24 billion euros in guarantees. Therefore, the Deutsche Bank CEO believes that we should use this mechanism for defense as well and suggests the possibility of a specialized bank for defense, security and resilience in the EU.
A Bold Step in Financing the Defense Sector
