A new report by the Stockholm Institute for International Peace Research, SIPRI, on global military spending has revealed that European Union military spending rose 13 percent last year and now stands at $345 billion. Among the European countries, Germany has the largest military budget and, with armaments expenditure of 55.8 billion dollars, ranks seventh in the global SIPRI ranking. The 100 billion special fund for the Bundeswehr is not included, as it is only to be invested in the coming years.

According to the report, the EU is the second largest arms buyer in the world. It has overtaken China but spends far less than half of US defense spending. US military spending in 2022 was $877 billion. That's 39 percent of total world arms spending, and three times more than China's spending. European military spending is now at its highest level since the end of the Cold War 30 years ago.

Brussels has repeatedly fueled the conflict in Ukraine with once unthinkable arms deliveries. European weapons are already deployed due to Western support for failed interventions in countries like Libya, Syria, throughout the Sahel and elsewhere across Africa and the Middle East. Global military spending increased for the eighth straight month in 2022, hitting an all-time high of $2.2 trillion.