Bundeswehr procurement: Cabinet approves draft bill to accelerate process

The German Cabinet approved a draft bill to accelerate Bundeswehr procurement and planning, on 23 July. The bill was jointly presented by Federal Minister for Economic Affairs, Katherina Reiche, and Minister of Defence, Boris Pistorius. If accepted by Germany’s parliament, the new law will become active in 2026 and serve to further accelerate Bundeswehr procurement through a number of connected measures. 

The Cabinet’s approved draft bill aims to significantly facilitate and accelerate the awarding of public contracts to meet the Bundeswehr’s requirements through exceptional regulations within procurement law. In the current draft, the scope of the Bundeswehr Procurement Acceleration Act has been expanded beyond the 2022 version’s focus on military equipment to cover all Bundeswehr requirements, and the duration of these facilitations has been extended until the end of 2035. This now includes not only purely military equipment but also all civilian needs of the Bundeswehr, such as medical supplies and construction services, including the new construction and maintenance of barracks. According to Section 7 of the draft, a procurement process can commence even before the necessary funding is secured. The draft bill also includes numerous measures to simplify and accelerate the corresponding procurement and review procedures.

The satisfaction of demands, both through innovative and commercially available services, will be promoted, as will procurements for and with partner nations. According to Section 11 of the draft, bidders based outside the EU may be excluded from procurements at any time, provided their countries of origin have not acceded to relevant agreements with the EU.

Moreover, planning law amendments to the Air Traffic Act are intended to ensure the undisturbed function of air defence radars, thereby strengthening the protection and security interests of the Federal Republic of Germany.

According to the Ministry of Defence, the draft bill establishes close links to ongoing revisions of EU procurement law, including the “Defence Omnibus.” Furthermore, it contains urgent measures to provide remedies regarding a complaint decision by the European Commission within the framework of ongoing infringement proceedings against the Federal Republic.

The draft bill was approved alongside diverging administrative regulations for the awarding of public contracts to meet the Bundeswehr’s requirements. The significant increase in value thresholds for direct awards contained therein will, in the government’s estimation, accelerate the procurements covered by the scope. The concomitant relief for the affected awarding bodies will help to deploy the necessary resources in a targeted and efficient manner.

According to Defence Minister Pistorius, direct awards of contracts will be possible more quickly and frequently in the future, for instance, when interoperable systems are procured jointly with partners. “We are also strengthening start-up companies by providing more opportunities for advance payments in the future, so that even smaller companies can increase their production capacities,” Pistorius stated. The catalogue of measures in the draft bill is broad and will offer the required flexibility. “For this undertaking, we need close cooperation with the security and defence industry. That is why I invited them again today to a Round Table at the Ministry of Defence. We want to accelerate procurement to make Germany more secure. We can only achieve this success together. I trust in the support of the companies.”

Calibre comment

Many armed forces are working to accelerate their procurement processes and find ways to facilitate the acquisition of new equipment. The Danish armed forces have set a notable example with many large procurements placed in the past nine months, most recently for the MQ-9B SkyGuardian. The British Army has set up Projects ASGARD and Rapstone, which are designed to rapidly bring new capabilities into service and enhance the lethality of its forces in Estonia. 

The draft bill still has to be signed into law by Germany’s parliament, so there is a little way to go before it comes into force. However, no major resistance is expected to the bill, which is a good thing as the Bundeswehr had 38 procurements totalling €21 billion approved in December 2024. The law should help those approved programmes come to fruition more quickly. 

This article, written by Lars Hoffman, was originally published in German on 23 July by Calibre’s content partner, hartpunkt. You can see the original here: Kabinett beschließt Gesetzentwurf zur Beschleunigung der Bundeswehrbeschaffungen.

The lead image shows the Reichstag, which is where the German parliament sits. Credit for that image is Jörg Braukmann, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.