A big defence budget shows Germany has woken up

GERMANY’S POST-WAR pacifism was once comforting to its neighbours and to Germans themselves. Yet, with the passing of the generations, attitudes have shifted. Sensible Europeans long ago stopped seeing Germany as a threat. On the contrary, the passivity of its foreign policy has in recent years posed more of a danger, by encouraging aggressors such as Vladimir Putin. At last Mr Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has convinced Germans to take security seriously. As Olaf Scholz‘s first budget makes clear, Germany is preparing to pull its weight. The task for Germany’s new chancellor is to make sure that the effort is sustained, effective and encompasses risk-sharing as well as just cash-splurging.

The budget presented to Germany’s coalition cabinet on March 16th was accompanied by a proposed law creating a special defence fund worth €100bn ($110bn). This will be used to boost German defence spending from around 1.5% of GDP to at least 2%, the level that NATO members are supposed to meet but Germany has consistently missed. The cash should be enough to bridge the gap for the next four or five years if officials decide to spend it that quickly. It would have been better to increase the regular defence budget, rather than relying on a one-off top-up fund, so that the change would be harder to reverse. But still, Germany will for now become the world’s third-biggest military spender.