A top executive of the German Security and Defence Industry Association, Dr. Hans Christoph Atzpodien, described the announcement by the leaders of CDU, CSU and SPD to exempt defence spending above one percent of the country’s gross domestic product from the debt brake as a “liberation”.
This could lead to the flow of triple-digit billion euros into German rearmament in the coming years, according to the Nordkurier on Wednesday. The association’s head found that the European NATO countries “must now take care of their own armament more than before due to the geopolitical situation”. Atzpodien believes this will trigger a wave of new orders for the European and, in particular, German defence industry.
In response, the association presented a concrete proposal on Wednesday for how the new defence production capacities could be realized. According to Atzpodien, production sites of cars and auto suppliers should be converted to defence production. For him, the motto is “cars to defence”:
“Currently, the freeing up of resources in the automotive and automotive supplier sector in Germany offers special opportunities to quickly ramp up defence capacities, especially in the area of larger series. The motto could be ‘cars to defence’!”
He does not think one should lament the economic damage caused by the decline of the auto industry. Instead, production facilities and auto industry professionals should be “as smoothly as possible” transferred to the defence sector. He also demands the urgent elimination of “critical bottlenecks”. The official certifications for the so-called security authorizations of auto industry professionals should be accelerated so that they can be used in the defence industry more quickly. Furthermore, the regulatory framework for new defence goods production capacities should be improved in the current “shortage of defence goods”.