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Under its arms export guidelines, the German government wants to restrict deliveries to countries outside the EU and NATO. But in 2020 exports worth billions were approved to a particularly troubled region.
In 2020, the German government approved arms exports worth more than 1 billion euros to countries involved in the conflicts in Yemen or Libya. For Egypt alone, exports of arms and military equipment worth 752 million euros were allowed until December 17. This stems from a response from the Federal Ministry of Economy to a request from the member of the Green Bundestag, Omid Nouripour.
Larger quantities of weapons can also be delivered to Qatar (€ 305.1 million), the United Arab Emirates (€ 51.3 million), Kuwait (€ 23.4 million) and Turkey (€ 22.9 million ). be. In addition, permits were issued for Jordan (€ 1.7 million) and Bahrain (€ 1.5 million). The bottom line is that it all adds up to 1,160 million euros.
Many countries involved in conflicts
All the mentioned countries play a role in at least one of the two conflicts that have been developing for years. In Yemen, a Saudi-led alliance is fighting alongside the government there against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. The alliance includes the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, and Bahrain. But Saudi Arabia is primarily involved in the fighting.
In the conflict in Libya, Qatar and Turkey are involved on the side of the internationally recognized government of Prime Minister Fajis al-Sarradsch in Tripoli. Sarradsch’s most powerful adversary, General Khalifa Haftar, has the support of the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. There is currently a ceasefire in Libya and hope for peace.
The Egyptian ambassador in Berlin, Khaled Galal Abdelhamid, sees German arms exports as a vote of confidence. The cooperation shows “that Germany is confident that this equipment is being used for the right purposes,” he said. Egypt buys submarines and patrol boats, among other things.
Germany actually for stopping arms delivery
Germany has played a mediating role in the conflict that has been going on since the overthrow of long-term ruler Muammar al-Gaddafi in 2011. The federal government is primarily committed to stopping arms deliveries to the North African country and organized a summit in Berlin a year ago. But even after that, according to the UN, weapons were still delivered to Libya, including from Turkey and the Emirates.
At the insistence of the Social Democrats, the Union and the SPD had included a clause in the 2018 coalition agreement on arms exports to countries involved in the Yemen war. Consequently, deliveries to all states “directly” involved in the war must be stopped. To date, the decision has only been fully implemented for Saudi Arabia, Sudan, which was temporarily involved in the kingdom of Yemen with ground troops, and Yemen itself.
Greens: “Big differences between words and actions”
Green foreign politician Nouripour harshly criticized the continued exports to the other states of the Yemen War Alliance. “This means that the coalition agreement agreement is not worth the paper it is written on,” he said. He also complained that the German government had allowed arms surrender to countries that had broken the arms embargo against Libya. “There are gaps as big as lunar craters between the words and the deeds of this federal government.”
In its arms export guidelines, which only tightened in 2019, the German government pledged to restrictively handle deliveries to countries outside the European Union and NATO. She always points out strong fluctuations in the statistics and in the current response she again thinks that “a purely numerical view (…) is not an adequate means to evaluate the restriction of the arms export policy”.
Arms export licenses reached a record value of € 8.015 billion in 2019. In 2020, however, there was a significant decrease recently. Until December 10, only deliveries worth € 5,635 million were allowed. That stems from the answer to an earlier question from left-wing MP Sevim Dagdelen.
