German Radio, October 24-30 is UN Disarmament Week, but that's of little interest to the flourishing German arms industry. Berlin has the last word on arms sales, and gives the go-ahead a bit too willingly, say human rights groups.
An estimated 80,000 people are employed by the German arms industry, which might be far fewer than during the Cold War but still counts as a thriving business.
Most of the weapons and armaments manufactured are earmarked for the Bundeswehr, but exports are now on the rise. Submarines and tanks “Made in Germany” might boast technological excellence, but the market for them is a small and highly competitive one.
Although not one single German company numbers among the world's top ten largest arms manufacturers, the country is nonetheless one of the world's busiest arms exporters. German-made armaments tend to be produced by medium-sized companies, but the fact they boast first-class quality guarantees them a lucrative corner of the cut-throat international market. And in recent years, Germany has managed to boost this share even further.
The business of war
According to journalist Thomas Meuter, an expert on the German arms industry, this success is largely due to technical know-how.
“With its various products and developments, (Germany) plays in the champions' league,” says Meuter. “These products include armed vehicles and tanks, as well as technologies to protect these vehicles and soldiers.”
The Leopard 2, for example, is a German main battle tank built by the German company Krauss-Maffei-Wegmann. Exceptionally bullet and mine-proof, it's a bestseller with armies deployed on foreign soil.
Government green light
In this respect, major international missions such as Afghanistan can mean big business for the German arms industry. But sales are not always straightforward.
According to German Basic Law, all arms exports need to be approved by the government. The lion's share of Germany's exported armaments goes to NATO partners and European countries — sales to which Berlin will generally give the green light.
But when it comes to other countries, the deal has to meet certain stipulations laid out in arms export guidelines.
These criteria were last agreed by the previous government. Social Democrat Uta Zapf has been a long-standing member of the German parliament's Defense Committee and helped draft the regulations.
“One criterion concerns flashpoints, another human rights,” explains Zapf. “These two points are very decisive, and the way around them, as it were, is to cite German security interests.”
The ethics of selling arms
Much to the disgust of Mathias John, an arms expert with Amnesty international, this argument justifies the sale of German submarines to Pakistan, despite current unrest and a flawed human rights record.
“Making German arms technology available to a regime that breaches human rights sends a wrong signal,” he argues. “It's comparable to selling Turkey a large number of arms — as repeatedly happened in the past, despite its catastrophic human rights record — including battle tanks and small arms which specifically lead to breaches of human rights.”
The public is seldom kept abreast of these decisions, given that the Federal Security Council meetings to consider the export requests from arms manufacturers are top secret. According to Uta Zapf, not even the German Parliament is able to exert influence
“It would be more transparent if we were kept informed and could contribute to the decision-making process,” she says. “But the government will not allow this, because sales requests from industry are subject to data protection and the information needs to be kept private to protect business interests. However, other countries have found ways of dealing with these issues.”
For the time being, greater transparency remains off the cards. Neither the government not the arms industry has a vested interest in changing the status quo. Instead, the public has to rely for this kind of information on the annual arms export report — but is still waiting for publication of the 2006 file.
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