Demands are increasingly growing within the SPD parliamentary group that civilian assistance for Ukraine should be exempt from the debt brake, in line with how military aid has been handled so far. This is reported by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, citing a resolution passed by the three working groups for Foreign Policy, Economic Cooperation, and Human Rights.
While the German Basic Law has allowed for a relaxation of the debt brake since last year to provide “aid to states illegally attacked under international law,” civilian assistance has currently been drawn from the budgets of the Ministry of Development and the Foreign Office. According to the working groups’ resolution, the Federal Government’s National Security Strategy explicitly defines security as an “integrated interaction of defense, diplomacy, and development.”
However, the resolution warns that cuts to these two specific budget lines would “have a perceptible impact on the support for Ukraine.” If civilian aid were to be financed in the same manner as military aid, the affected departments would gain urgently needed operational flexibility. Both ministries recently had to endure massive cuts related to international assistance.
