Germany orders 23 billion Euros worth of weapons and equipment for its military
Germany has requested 23 billion Euros ($24.7 billion) worth of weapons and equipment for its armed forces during a visit by Defense Minister Boris Pistorius to the United States.
Pistorius said Wednesday in the city of Philadelphia, during a tour of a Boeing helicopter factory, that there is a total of about 380 contracts with US defense companies.
The CH47-Chinook heavy transport helicopter, 60 of which Germany ordered in the latest Block 2 model, is produced there.
After the visit, Pistorius said the company had confirmed that there were no risks to the planned delivery by 2027. Germany will thus be able to fulfill the commitments it has made to NATO set out in its defense plan.
Pistorius reiterated that Germany wants to buy more products already available on the market for its military, meaning it can avoid long and costly development contracts.
“Thanks to the shift in procurement, and this is an example of this, we will be able to address many of these accelerating projects in the future”.
Germany’s defense minister reiterated that more funds are needed to modernize the Bundeswehr once resources are disbursed to a special fund of 100 billion Euros ($107 billion) arranged after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Pistorius has said the debt restraint mechanism shouldn’t restrict defense spending in his country.
In 2028, the 100 billion Euro special fund created for the military will have been disbursed after the outbreak of war in Ukraine, but Pistorius is seeking significant increases to the regular defense budget because he believes that without that there will be a risk of demilitarization.
On same context, Israeli Defense Ministry officials and their German counterparts held a joint meeting at Israel Aerospace Industries to discuss the production of the Arrow 3 air defense system for Germany, the Defense Ministry said on Thursday.
The ministry said the meeting was the first of its kind held by the two sides, adding that it was held symbolically during Holocaust Remembrance Week, according to the Jerusalem Post newspaper on its website.
The Arrow-3 air defense system was first used on November 9 last year to intercept a missile fired by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis, on Eilat.
The Arrow 3 system is part of the broader Arrow weapons system, which was jointly developed by Israel and the United States.
The Arrow system also includes the Arrow 2 system, which is designed to intercept long-range ballistic missiles.
The Israeli Defense Ministry confirmed that the Arrow weapons system worked very successfully during the Iranian attack on Israel on April 14, during which about 300 rockets and drones were fired at Israel.
The German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and his Israeli counterpart Yoav Galant signed a declaration of intent in Berlin in September regarding Germany’s purchase of Israel’s Arrow-3 missile defense system, according to a German Defense Ministry spokeswoman.
