Published
FranceTwo billion euros will be spent on ordering ammunition in 2023
The Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu evokes the “adaptations” necessary in the face of the war in Ukraine.
This pretext photo shows abandoned munitions on the war front in Ukraine.
AFP
“We are offering you an exceptional sum of two billion euros for ammunition alone for our armed forces, that is to say 500 million euros more than the year 2022, 60% more credits compared to to 2019”, affirmed the Minister while presenting the 2023 draft budget to the deputies of the Defense Committee. He stressed that these were “adaptations” to the situation of the war in Ukraine.
As announced on several occasions and as must be the case once more in 2024 and 2025, the armed forces budget will increase by three billion euros in 2023 to reach 43.9 billion euros (excluding pensions), in accordance with the Law of military programming (LPM 2019-2025). In this envelope, “there are things that were already planned, there are also things obviously that we have chosen to accelerate in view of what we know on the eastern flank”, he remarked.
Nuclear deterrence
The modernization of nuclear deterrence will, for its part, mobilize 5.6 billion euros in payment appropriations in 2023. Asked by several deputies regarding the impact of inflation on the budget increase planned for 2023, Mr Lecornu admitted that “Inflation has always invited itself into the LPM (but) this inflation margin is new”.
However, he added, “there are mechanisms to deal with inflation”. “We estimate the effects of inflation at one billion euros on the whole budget, we are going towards a billion euros in deferral of charges”, he underlined, in reference to the deferral of the payment of invoices to the following year. “Overall we are dampening things,” concluded the minister.
(AFP)
