BERLIN, Jan. 28 (Xinhua) -- The modernization of the German armed forces Bundeswehr had made only little progress last year, according to the annual report of the parliamentary commissioner for German armed forces presented on Tuesday.
"Staff shortages, material shortages and bureaucratic over-organization remain a feature of everyday life" of the armed forces of Germany, the report stated.
According to the report, the armed forces continued to have shortages of combat vehicles, helicopters, weapons and ammunition. The Ministry of Defense had "not succeeded in significantly improving the material operational readiness of the main weapon system so far."
Commissioner Hans-Peter Bartels stressed that "a bold paradigm shift would be desirable." Instead of lengthy tendering processes, the report noted that most of the required military equipment could simply be bought on the market.
The situation with regards to staff shortages had also seen little progress. The report found that the number of vacant officer posts in 2019 had remained at around 20,000.
International deployments were often filled by the same specialists "over and over again", noted the report. Because of a standard deployment period of six months, this would be difficult to reconcile with family life.
According to the Defense Ministry, Germany's defense budget had been around 43.2 billion euros (47.5 billion U.S. dollars) in 2019, accounting for 12.1 percent of the total federal budget. Around 9.9 billion euros had been earmarked for investment measures.
Last year, Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer announced that Germany would increase its defense spending to 1.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2024 and to 2 percent by 2031 in order to reach the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) target.
