Germany preps constitution change to finance historic defense uptick

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Germany’s parliament on Tuesday voted in favor of amending the constitution to enable significantly increased defense spending.

The Bundestag decision, 512 to 206, comes amid European governments warming to the idea of taking on new debt for defense following Russia’s war against Ukraine.

The vote solidifies incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s focus on defense issues, made possible by a two-thirds majority of the outgoing parliament that would have been iffy after a new class of lawmakers is seated on March 25.

The landmark vote upended a longstanding taboo against new government debt. Passed with the support of the Green Party in addition to the incoming governing coalition of conservatives and social democrats to reach a two-thirds majority, it changes the constitution to exempt military spending and some infrastructure funding from the country’s strict debt ceiling.

Additionally, it means that a new aid package to Ukraine worth €3 billion ($3.28 billion) could be released by Berlin by the end of this week, the designated chancellor told reporters on Tuesday.

Merz’s position is remarkable: The so-called “debt brake” had been introduced by his own party, which has long been hawkish on balancing the budget. He himself had previously decried attempts to increase government spending by taking new loans. Now, he has led his party through a rapid 180-degree turn. It presents a logical continuation of outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz’s left-of-center government, which mobilized massive sums of money in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Spurred on by the crumbling of the transatlantic partnership with the United States under the second Trump administration, Europe has been engaged in a fundamental rethinking of how it should interact with the world and where its priorities lie. Defense – both from Russia and with greater independence from the U.S. – has come out as a top priority.

Steps are in the works at breakneck speed – at least by European Union standards – to create means for the bloc’s 27 member countries to invest massively in their armed forces. In Brussels, the Commission, serving as the European Union’s executive branch, is preparing loans of around €150 billion ($164 billion) for military expenditures by national capitals, expected to contribute to around €800 billion ($873 billion) in new military investments.

The package of new loans alone would exceed Russia’s annual defense budget.

But what’s perhaps even more remarkable is how little opposition it faced. Member countries’ governments have, in the past, jealously guarded their national competencies against the EU, and defense was long seen as solidly a prerogative of the national governments. Additionally, fiscally frugal countries, first and foremost the Netherlands and Germany, have long been opposed to loans and the idea of taking on debt. Both seem to be changing.

With the perception here in Europe growing that the continent is now on its own, calls for greater financial flexibility and, crucially, deeper integration have become louder. High-ranking officials in national governments, the EU and even the U.K. have called it a pivotal and historic moment and echoed these desires.

Germany, which alongside France is seen as a leading figure in Europe due to its position as the EU’s largest country and biggest economy, now looks set to step up into a leadership role. Speaking before the country’s parliament on Tuesday, Merz said that his country’s rearmament could only be “a big first step toward a European defense community.” Its armed forces are already deeply integrated with those of the Netherlands, with all three Dutch combat brigades now placed under German divisional command and the German Navy’s Sea Battalion being under Dutch leadership.

Meanwhile, the U.K.’s foreign secretary teamed up with his EU counterpart in an opinion piece published Tuesday morning that implored that in this “once-in-a-generation moment for European security,” Britain and the EU must work closely together because “when it comes to keeping our continent safe, Europe cannot afford to be less than the sum of our parts.”

And in Paris, President Emmanuel Macron has rewarmed his country’s offer of sharing its nuclear arsenal with other European countries as a replacement for a possibly faltering U.S. nuclear umbrella. France is the only EU country with its own nuclear arsenal.

At present, the U.S. has nuclear weapons based in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Italy, as well as Turkey, which are seen as providing a major deterrent to Russian aggression.

The French proposal isn’t new, but with Trump calling NATO’s functioning as a mutual defense alliance into question, it has fallen onto much more receptive ears this time around. Poland, for its part, has said it is “talking seriously” with France about its proposal.

Linus Höller is Defense News' Europe correspondent and OSINT investigator. He reports on the arms deals, sanctions, and geopolitics shaping Europe and the world. He holds master’s degrees in WMD nonproliferation, terrorism studies, and international relations, and works in four languages: English, German, Russian, and Spanish.

荷兰海牙——德国议会周二投票赞成修改宪法，以便大幅增加国防开支。

德国联邦议院以 512 票赞成、206 票反对通过了这项决议。此前，俄罗斯对乌克兰发动了战争，欧洲各国政府开始倾向于为国防承担新的债务。

此次投票巩固了即将上任的总理弗里德里希·默茨对国防问题的重视，这得益于即将卸任的议会三分之二的多数票，而如果是在3月25日新一届议员就职后，这一多数票可能就难以保证了。

这项具有里程碑意义的投票打破了长期以来禁止新增政府债务的禁忌。该法案在绿党以及即将上任的保守党和社会民主党执政联盟的支持下获得三分之二多数通过，修改了宪法，将军事开支和部分基础设施建设资金排除在国家严格的债务上限之外。

此外，候任总理周二告诉记者，这意味着柏林可能在本周末前向乌克兰发放价值 30 亿欧元（32.8 亿美元）的新援助计划。

默茨的立场令人瞩目：所谓的“债务刹车”机制正是由他所在的政党推出的，而该党长期以来在平衡预算问题上持鹰派立场。他本人此前曾强烈反对通过举借新债来增加政府开支。如今，他却带领自己的政党完成了180度大转弯。这与即将卸任的总理奥拉夫·朔尔茨领导的中间偏左政府的做法如出一辙，后者在俄罗斯入侵乌克兰后立即动员了巨额资金。

在特朗普第二任期内，跨大西洋中美伙伴关系逐渐瓦解，这促使欧洲开始从根本上重新思考其与世界的互动方式以及自身的优先事项。防御——既要防范俄罗斯的威胁，又要更加独立于美国——已成为首要任务。

欧盟正以惊人的速度——至少以欧盟的标准来看——采取措施，为欧盟27个成员国大规模投资其武装力量创造条件。在布鲁塞尔，作为欧盟执行机构的欧盟委员会正准备向各国首都提供约1500亿欧元（1640亿美元）的贷款，用于军事开支，预计这将促成约8000亿欧元（8730亿美元）的新增军事投资。

仅这笔新贷款就将超过俄罗斯的年度国防预算。

但或许更令人惊讶的是，它几乎未遇到任何反对。过去，成员国政府一直竭力维护自身国家权力，不让欧盟染指，国防长期以来被视为各国政府的专属权力。此外，财政节俭的国家，尤其是荷兰和德国，长期以来都反对贷款和举债。但如今，这两种情况似乎都在发生变化。

随着欧洲日益形成一种孤立无援的观念，要求更大财政灵活性以及至关重要的更深层次一体化的呼声也越来越高。各国政府、欧盟乃至英国的高级官员都称这是一个关键的历史性时刻，并表达了同样的愿望。

德国与法国并列为欧洲的领军国家，因为它是欧盟最大的国家和最大的经济体，如今看来，德国正准备承担起领导角色。周二，默茨在德国议会发表讲话时表示，德国的重新武装仅仅是“迈向欧洲防务共同体的重要一步”。德国军队已经与荷兰军队深度融合，荷兰的三个作战旅目前均置于德国师级指挥之下，德国海军的海上营也由荷兰指挥。

与此同时，英国外交大臣与欧盟外交大臣联名发表了一篇评论文章，文章于周二上午发表，恳请英国和欧盟在这个“一代人一次的欧洲安全时刻”密切合作，因为“在维护我们大陆安全方面，欧洲不能承受实力低于其各部分之和的后果”。

在巴黎，法国总统马克龙重申了法国与其他欧洲国家共享核武库的提议，以此替代可能摇摇欲坠的美国核保护伞。法国是欧盟唯一拥有自主核武库的国家。

目前，美国在荷兰、比利时、德国、意大利以及土耳其都部署了核武器，这被视为对俄罗斯侵略行为的重大威慑。

法国的提议并非新提议，但由于特朗普质疑北约作为共同防御联盟的运作，此次提议更容易被接受。波兰方面表示，正在与法国就此提议进行“认真磋商”。

林努斯·霍勒是《防务新闻》的欧洲记者和开源情报调查员。他报道影响欧洲乃至全球的军火交易、制裁和地缘政治。他拥有大规模杀伤性武器不扩散、恐怖主义研究和国际关系三个硕士学位，并精通英语、德语、俄语和西班牙语四种语言。