BERLIN: Germany got the go-ahead to buy F-35 fighter jets produced by U.S. defence giant Lockheed Martin as part of military procurement projects worth 13 billion euros ($13.85 billion), Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht said on Wednesday.
The German parliament’s budget committee approved the spending, including 10 billion euros for the F-35 jets as well as funds for the purchase of encrypted digital radios and assault rifles.
These projects are among the first to tap money from a 100 billion euro ($106 billion) special fund that Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced in a major policy shift days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.
The money is meant to bring the German military’s weapons and equipment back up to standard after decades of attrition following the end of the Cold War. Of the 100-billion-euro fund for the armed forces, Lambrecht said: “This will probably not be enough to close the gaps that emerged over the past years because we neglected procurement.”
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