Closing ‘Peacetime’ Defense Funding Gap To Cost Billions, Report Says

A new German Defense Ministry report has acknowledged significant capability gaps due to "peacetime" underfunding, reports Breaking Defense.

The selected procurement report published on Tuesday also said that filling those gaps would take time.

Germany's draft 2023 budget will be set at 50.1 billion euros (US$52.9 billion), about 300 million euros (US$316 million) less than the official 2022 total.

The ministry forecast that procurement spending would increase dramatically to 15 billion euros (US$15.8 billion) by 2024, up from 9.9 billion euros (US$10.4 billion) in 2022.

The report also says that the government remains committed to increase the size of the armed forces to 203,000 personnel by 2031, up from the current level of 183,000 troops.