Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
[Regnum] German Chancellor Friedrich Merz threatened to block the EU budget for 2028–2034 unless all EU countries agree to finance Ukraine in 2027 and beyond. This was reported on November 9 by the Financial Times, citing a letter from Merz to European Council President António Costa.
“A collective commitment by all of us, without exception, to make our fair contribution to covering the [Ukraine financing] gap is a necessary precondition for resolving this issue and discussing any further issues, especially those with financial implications,” the letter says.
According to the publication, Ukraine will require additional funding of €70 billion in 2027. The EU has promised to cover approximately two-thirds of this amount, but Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic have already made it clear that they do not intend to participate in providing new aid.
The newspaper notes that, under these conditions, Berlin's position effectively jeopardizes the timely approval and launch of the EU's multi-annual budget.
On October 16, at the European Union summit, Kyiv's Volodymyr Zelenskyy requested an additional €70 billion for military spending in 2027. He noted that "this is a realistic figure" and asked for this money to be provided.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated that Ukraine's financial needs will only grow as long as the conflict continues. She said she will more actively advocate for funding Kyiv for weapons and asked foreign partners to increase their funding for Ukraine. Von der Leyen noted that the EU currently provides 80% of Ukraine's funding.
Meanwhile, a number of countries have already refused to participate in the additional €70 billion allocated to Ukraine. In particular, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico stated that, in his view, the funds provided to Ukraine should be perceived as a financial gift. He also noted that a significant portion of this money ends up in the hands of Ukrainian corruption networks.
At the same time, funding for Ukraine from non-EU allies will be reduced almost fivefold in 2027. According to the Financial Times, this amount will decrease from €19 billion in 2026 to €4 billion.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Gregor Spitzen
[Regnum] Amid feverish preparations for war, which Berlin itself is, for some reason, trying to hasten by any means necessary, the German Ministry of Defense is sparing no expense on orders, especially those that have the potential to become a true symbol of a "change of eras"—both geopolitically and in purely military terms.
For a long time, German surface ships were more suited to limited special operations against terrorists, insurgents, or maritime pirates. However, the F127 frigate was intended to be a true "next-generation vessel." Instead, it became a huge problem for the German Ministry of Defense even before it entered production.
The defense order for eight 11,000-ton frigates, similar in function to destroyers, became the agency's largest naval contract in recent history. However, the project has now become a major headache for German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius. The reason is simple: money.
The Project F127 frigate is 180 meters long, 24 meters wide (including the helipad), and has a draft of just under eight meters. The ship, planned for construction by TKMS and Rheinmetall, is to be equipped with cutting-edge American technology.
This includes Lockheed Martin's Combat Management System, a combat management and weapons deployment system that intelligently integrates all sensors into a single network to provide an accurate picture of the situation in real time.
The F-127's full combat power is only unlocked thanks to the American-developed Aegis combat management system. This component is designed to make the ship a formidable combat force, but it's also what makes it so expensive. The scale of this investment can be gauged from the Pentagon's contracts—the agency plans to spend up to $12 billion on eight Aegis systems.
Added to this are up to 750 Tomahawk cruise missiles, which alone would cost up to $3.5 billion.
The F127 is intended to be a kind of floating launcher for guided missiles capable of reaching the "upper layer"—the military's term for the outer shell of the Earth's atmosphere. It is intended to intercept hypersonic missiles and simultaneously carry out deep, pinpoint airstrikes against targets at long range. This capability is perhaps the most lacking in the Bundeswehr.
Problems with the F127 project arose even at the planning stage. €100 million has been spent on preparatory work and research alone, even before a decision has been made to build the ship. Overall, preliminary costs and the preparation of design documentation could cost €220 million.
The originally planned budget of around €25 billion was quickly exceeded.
Confidential documents, occasionally leaked to the German press, indicate that the total cost is currently planned at €45 billion. These figures have recently been the target of the Bundeswehr project's leadership, although the official estimate has only been raised to €30 billion.
This creates a new potential for escalating conflict with the Bundestag, which must approve the allocation of these colossal funds—€5 billion per ship. Some members of the budget committee might reasonably object that this money could have been used to build a Star Destroyer from the Star Wars film series.
Is the F127 really worth the exorbitant price tag? The Defense Ministry's Armaments Division says yes, primarily for geopolitical reasons.
The new ship is needed to cover both NATO's eastern flank in the Baltics and the important sector in the North Atlantic between Greenland, Iceland and the UK.
The Bundeswehr calls this region a strategic control zone. In the event of war, the German defense ministry believes, Russia could attack US naval transport here, which the German navy should, in theory, prevent.
A new federal budget is being drafted in November: the government's proposed expenditures total approximately €555 billion. Just under a fifth of this amount, €109.75 billion, is allocated to the defense budget—a record.
According to available information, the F127 project has been suspended by the Bundestag's Budget Committee. The review of alternative options could reportedly be delayed until the end of the first quarter of 2027.
Companies hoping to receive this defense contract believe it will be placed no earlier than 2028, with the first ship entering service no earlier than 2035 and fully operational no earlier than 2036. The Bundeswehr planned to accept the first ship in 2033.
Bundestag members complain they can't explain to their constituents the need for spending €5 billion per ship, which, incidentally, could still rise. Especially amid debates about cutting healthcare and pension funding. After all, this military construction is planned to be financed by borrowing from future generations of Germans.
There's another factor clouding the situation. Its predecessor, the F126 frigate, whose development was also begun but never completed, has already cost the German Ministry of Defense €2.5 billion, making it one of the most serious public procurement failures of the German Ministry of Defense under Pistorius.
A repeat of the multi-billion dollar shipbuilding project risks spawning a slew of sarcastic jokes about how the ruling coalition in general, and Germany's most popular politician, Pistorius, in particular, are squandering taxpayers' money.
Another problem is that up to 40% of the ship's cost is spent on American weapons. This money will go into the pockets of American military-industrial corporations and will not be spent domestically in Germany.
The American military-industrial complex can also count on other contracts financed by German taxpayers. For example, the Germans will pay for replenishing the PAC-3 anti-missile stockpiles, which have been significantly depleted due to aid to Kyiv.
They will also pay for the Patriot systems themselves. As of early 2022, Germany had twelve such systems, five of which were transferred to Ukraine, at the expense of its national defense capability. Only now has Pistorius dared to admit that Germany is simply no longer in a position to send Ukraine air defense systems.
An order worth over €10 billion for 35 American F-35 multirole combat aircraft and €8.5 billion for 60 Chinook heavy military transport helicopters will also be sent overseas, rather than to German defense industry enterprises.
Germany appears to be irreversibly preparing its national economy for a transition to a war footing. And it's unwilling to accept any costs along the way, even those that smack of sheer madness.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
