Annex E: Germany

Since the end of the Cold War, successive German governments have instigated consecutive rounds of defence spending cuts. Over the past three years, the shifting European security environment, bolstered by public support for modernising the Bundeswehr, has helped incentivise increases in the German defence budget. As a result, Germany has announced a defence spending increase from 1.2 to 1.5 per cent of GDP by 2025. As of 2017, the German defence industry employed 135,700 personnel and generated a turnover of €28.4 billion. The German DTIB is comprised of globally operating companies and a network of SMEs. Germany is exhibiting a growing focus on multinational programmes to deliver new capabilities, and has a highly skilled workforce with a strong technological and industrial base beyond the defence sector, which heavy investment in modernising beginning after World War II.

The German DTIB faces unique constitutional, political and cultural conditions, including firm restrictions on the use of military force. Defence exports are often met with public criticism. Nonetheless, in 2016 German companies invested almost €63 billion in the development of new technologies and exported high-tech goods worth around €180 billion.