What about that whole 'Ukraine did Nordstream' narrative? Guess Germany knows it's a cover story.
I heard Zelensky did himself while on vacation in the Baltic. No big deal, get a boat, get some snorkerls, boom!
All of this in NATO waters but he borrowed harry potters cloak, so it worked out.
I don't think the majority in Germany care about nord stream, even if it was intact, we stopped importing gas from Russia more than a year ago and no one plans to resume it anytime soon. It's like slashing the tires on a car you sold for scrap last week.
I guess some things are more important to them. I'm sure the drivers making the deliveries will be ordered to put on their saddest faces
But there's no additional money available for infrastructure and social services within Germany. Something something Bundeshaushalt excuse and EU federal debt limit.
Whew, watch out, I mentioned the same kind of sentiment on a post about the billions of dollars that America is sending for the war, and got lectured on "that's not how government budgeting works and you know it blah blah blah"
It's neat how it's so easy for capitalist governments to authorize money for killing people, but when it comes to social spending there isn't even a penny to spare.
The German finance minister has been gleeful up on his high horse preventing additional spending on important things Germans need, but approved a €100B special fund for the military in 2022 outside of the bounds of the federal budget.
I think it's also worth mentioning that most of the US "aid" is actually loans. Even their food aid comes with real strong strings attached. The US owns Ukraine at this point. Although I'd don't know how German aid spending or military spending in support of Israel in general is structured.
Investing in making people die over-seas, rather than the wellbeing of their own population that essentially pays their wage...
Yea, anyone would find that blatantly suspicious. Their goals are perfectly clear.
But people have drank so much USA Koolaid that they cant possibly imagine a country running any differently.
It's not just Koolaid.
The relative domestic prosperity of the US is built upon that very overseas death and exploitation.
The people of the imperial core have some material interest in keeping that system of oppression going, even if they don't realize it or think about it in those terms.
If they're unwilling to stop an aggressor at their doorstep for a fraction of their budget, having more infrastructure or social services won't help them much
If it's such a small fraction, why is it so impossible to use it for other means?
Name one country with a bigger military budget
money doesn't immediately create soldiers or weapons.
Thing is that people running the west are completely detached from material reality. If you look at their backgrounds, they all come from media, law, lobbying, and so on. They think they can just will things to happen if they want them hard enough. They don't understand that you can't just spin up factories and create an educated workforce to operate them out of thin air.
This leads to hilarious outcome like this one where EU leaders thought they could just dump money into shell production to increase it. Instead, the price for one artillery shell has gone up to 8,000 euros from 2,000 euros due to lack of supply and increased liquidity.
Germany continuing their longstanding tradition of funding Nazi collaborators to kill Russians.
I want whatever this clown is smoking lol
sure, it's not like this was extensively documented in western media or anything
Great timing, I'm sure everybody is forgetting how it cost a small fortune to heat their home last winter right about now.
This doesn't appear to be anything official, right? not certain how much a coalition publicly agreeing to this translates to actual funding for Ukraine. Would also be nice to see how this funding stacks vs the US, and vs other EU country contributions.
It's officially agreed upon by all coalition members, but the finalizing of 2024's budget where they officially introduce that change is only scheduled for next week.
Also just the original 4 billion € for next year is more than all other countries with the exception of US and UK have spend this whole war...
That's just military aid though. In all, the EU has almost spent €85 billion to support Ukrainians.
For comparison, Russia is expected to have tripled their national military budget by 80 to €120 billion per year, or an increase of around 4% GDP. If the EU spends €60 billion /year on aid, that would mean around 0,4% of their GDP.
Aka Russia has a GDP comparable to Italy
Is this just a kind of inflation/recession write off for the EU and USA at this point? oh, our economy is not doing so great, we are short by X% of development from project, let's just write that off as 'aids' to Ukraine/Israel
This is the best summary I could come up with:
If approved by parliament, where Scholz's parties hold a majority, the boost would lift Germany's defence spending to 2.1% of its gross domestic product target, beyond the 2% pledged by all North Atlantic Treaty Organization members, the source added.
Lawmakers from Scholz's Social Democrats, the Free Democrats and the Green party agreed on the increase in negotiations over the proposed 2024 federal budget ahead of a formal meeting of the budget committee of the Bundestag - or lower house of parliament - on Thursday, Nov. 16, the source said.
A spokesperson for Germany's Ministry of Defence said the Bundestag committee has not finished negotiations and declined to comment further.
Defence minister Boris Pistorius, interviewed by broadcaster ARD, referred to the planned doubling of military aid to Ukraine.
"It is a strong signal to Ukraine that we will not leave them in the lurch," he said, adding the move, if agreed, would mean the annual budget allocation would be enough to last the whole year.
Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper had also said the committee is due to approve the additional 4 billion euros.
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