Il ministro degli Esteri tedesco ritiene che la spesa francese per la difesa sia insufficiente
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2026/02/16/german-foreign-minister-says-french-defense-spending-insufficient_6750523_4.html
di mods4mods
24 commenti
Can the French economy really sustain increased defence spending?
It’s perhaps a bit rich of Germany to criticize French defence spending, when Europe is now all under a French nuclear umbrella.
Not sure this is a very helpful comment by the German foreign minister.
The issue is the professional competence of the military and the effectiveness of spending the allocated funds.
Here’s a fairly typical example of how money was spent in Europe until recently:
“Yesterday’s drone that we might have tomorrow”: France on the verge of ejecting itself from the Eurodrone”
https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1r1y5t0/yesterdays_drone_that_we_might_have_tomorrow/
A lot of money was spent, companies successfully pocketed the funds, and maybe even got some useful know-how for the future, but… the goal wasn’t achieved. And nobody was held accountable.
Now, Germany is pouring a golden shower on weapons developers and manufacturers, and there are doubts about whether the money will be spent effectively.
This side of the coin isn’t mentioned in the article at all.
But I’d like Europe to get real weapons, not another Eurodrone or NH90 helicopter.
While I personally find it a Bit funny, I wouldnt have made a comment Like that myself.
Jesus Johan, we are in no position to critize anyone.
We underspent since reunification and even with higher flat spending then France our Forces are less equipped than the French.
If I were Macron, negociations about the nuclear sharing he evoked would stop there.
He’s not wrong that France needs to increase its defense spending to align with the committed 3.5% (or 5% depending on what you include).
But saying France is not doing enough for Europe’s strategic autonomy is, coming from Germany, extremely rich.
That’s gotta be a ragebait, considering Fthe respective stances of France and Germany on defence sovereignty.
He has nothing to say, he didn’t have an army for 80 years.
Funny knowing France is the rare country that kept investing in defense, has a big nuclear arsenal, and that country like Germany are spending premium to get capabilities that France already have, alongside taking in mind the unrealistic recruitment planned for Germany.
Whatever Germany do right now they are catching back, France is not, even on new things like drone french companies are neither selling foreign products nor ones that does not work and fail in Ukraine.
C’mon guys, now now, just take it easy, work together, no need to start this again….
Lol what
Spending is not a good metrics.
Germany spends billions on useless F35 that can be grounded by the US if they want to.
r/nottheonion
Like, the amount of money one spends is obviously a big part of the picture, but nonetheless given the gulf in capabilities between the French and German armed forces I am not sure that I would be throwing stones, were I living in yon fellow’s glass house.
When you start at the bottom, you’ll need to spend a lot of money to get back to parity.
France’s army is already working, the money being spent is either for the future or to sustain what we already got.
Germany has to rebuilt a lot of things, so of course hitting the 5% is going to be easy.
In France, everything is planned well in advance with our “loi de programmation militaire” , the current one is from 2024 to 2030. Our procurement system is also extremely effective so we get a lot of weapon and capabilities for our money. Just looking at the 5% target is dumb when you don’t add the context.
Why are my politicians like this…
Of all the EU countries, it is only France that actually has all the capabilities needed by a modern armed force.
Can’t hear you over the sound of my Rafales working whether Washington wants it or not
Or the sound of our SNLEs
Or the sound of our FDIs
The purpose of having a military branch is not to spend money on it, it’s for it to be able to carry out operations the way your doctrine requires it. The French military can defend the state’s sovereignty and strategic autonomy at a much higher degree than any other in the EU. Maybe start caring about that more than about numbers on the state’s budget.
The French spending may be lower, but their defense economics efficiency is probably among the best in the world considering what they’re getting for their budget.
Aircraft carriers, nuclear weapons, modern jets, transport aircraft, tanks, helicopters, missiles, artillery, vehicles, nuclear submarines, satellites, and surface combat ships- all of this and more on a budget of less than 60 billion euros.
Their stuff is usually not cutting edge and it’s usually not procured in vast quantities, but in a world where most countries have had to choose a narrow range of capabilities to preserve for domestic production- the French have defied that trend and managed to produce an incredible variety of modern equipment relative to their modest military spending.
The French have been spending more every year since 2022. It takes a truly remarkable individual to look at the state of French defense economics and come away with the conclusion that France needs to be chided for not spending more.
But when Trump says it…..
We should just move forward with EU defense spending. This doesn’t make any sense
He might not be wrong in the matter but we are really not in a position to shame the french lol
Why can’t european politicians, especially those from core countries like Germany, promote unity instead of taking ill-placed jabs at one another?
If anything, Germany’s defense, industrial and economical policies have been nothing but a net negative for the security and unification of Europe in the last decade. It’s time to pipe down and get to work and cooperate.