Dhe federal government issued licenses for armaments exports worth around 8.3 billion euros last year. Almost a quarter of the sum, more than 2.2 billion euros, went to arms aid to Ukraine, which received many used heavy weapons from Germany with a rather lower book value, including the Gepard anti-aircraft tanks and the Panzerhaubitzen 2000 also delivered expensive new developments, such as the Iris-T air defense systems.
Last year, at the end of the term of office of the grand coalition of Union and SPD, the total value of annual arms exports had risen to a record 9.4 billion euros.
At that time, Egypt took the top spot among the importing countries of German armaments. The export permits to the country included the delivery of three frigates and several Iris-T systems, the first of which have now been shipped to Ukraine with Egyptian approval; the deliveries to Cairo will therefore take place later. In this way, the export permits for anti-aircraft systems appear several times in the export statistics.
Fewer exports to third countries
According to the export figures given, which are contained in a response from the federal government to a question from Left-wing MP Sevim Dagdelen, the Netherlands will be the second-largest importer of German armaments in 2022. Deliveries worth 1.8 billion euros have been approved for the Dutch armed forces. These apparently include large orders for artillery ammunition. Like Germany, the Netherlands has units of the Panzerhaubitze 2000.
As members of NATO, the other supplier countries in the ranking list are also among those recipient countries to which arms exports are viewed as unproblematic. They are the United States with export permits worth around 860 million euros, Great Britain (450 million euros) and Hungary (250 million euros).
Fewer arms shipments to Egypt
Among the ten most important supplier countries are three other countries that do not belong to NATO or the EU. However, they belong to the group of friendly western countries to which the export of armaments is not considered to be a problem. They are Australia (almost 200 million euros), Singapore (175 million euros) and South Korea (167 million euros).
According to the preliminary annual statistics of the Federal Ministry of Economics, exports to so-called third countries, which are neither alliance partners nor equal countries, account for more than three billion euros in the current year, although Ukraine, with its export volume of 2.2 billion, also belongs to this category euros in the current year.
Even if the deliveries to Ukraine are counted as exports to a third country, the overall share of exports to third countries fell from 63.6 to 38.7 percent compared to 2021, since the high export volume for Egypt from the past year (4, 3 billion euros) has not come close to being repeated in the current year.
