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The Scientific Advisory Board at the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK) has dealt with aspects of the armament process in an expert report and made recommendations for improvement.

"For a long time, military procurement has had the reputation of being slow and ineffective." This statement is the starting point for the report, in which the framework conditions for the armament process are examined. The focus is on the Federal Armed Forces Financing and Special Assets Act and the Federal Armed Forces Procurement Acceleration Act – referred to as “special laws”. Under the heading "Parliamentary loop", the procedure for the 25 million euro proposal is criticized in detail. The shortcomings of the procurement process are another issue, as is the inadequate research in the defense sector.

As a consequence, a number of legal and organizational measures to improve and accelerate the armament process are proposed, including the abolition of the EUR 25 million bill.

The report does not provide any significant new insights, neither in the description of the current situation nor in the recommendations. One would have expected recommendations for action for one's own minister from a BMWK committee. Most of the recommendations seem more like appeals to those acting outside the BMWK.

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Two projects at different speeds in one picture: the long-running CH-47 heavy transport helicopter project and the quickly implemented C-130J transport aircraft (Photo: Boeing)

MdB Ingo Gädechens (CDU), rapporteur on defense matters in the budget committee, is surprised about the new term "parliamentary loop". The comments don't help from his point of view. With regard to the invitation to renegotiations mentioned in the report, he states that the Budget Committee will receive a finalized contract as part of the EUR 25 million proposal and can only agree to it or not.

The 25 million euro bill, which has been in place for decades, is an important means of parliamentary control, Gädechens continued. The question of whether changing or abolishing this template could lead to an acceleration of the award process is discussed again and again. When asked, the federal government did not want to provide any information on this. “So if not even the federal government believes that a change in a25 million euro templatecan speed up the procurement process, I don’t currently see a starting point either,” concludes Gädechens. He refers to internal government processes - both within the Ministry of Defense and in the exchange between the Ministry of Defense and Finance, which should be analyzed and accelerated in the long term. Unfortunately, the report does not address this issue.

The processes described in the report are at the end of the armaments process. Until then, a lot of time has passed, from the first impulse of the user through the formulation of the capability gap and functional requirement (FFF), market inspection and selection decision, tender with competition and contract negotiations. Last but not least, the duration is also influenced by the available funds for the realization phase. There is considerable potential for acceleration here. There are examples that procurement processes (eg F-35, Arrow 3) can run faster if the political will leads to appropriate prioritization and financial resources are made available.

The document can beBMWKbe retrieved.

Gerhard Heiming

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