Signal No. 187 · SBMD: Berlin budgets EUR 3 billion for missile warning from orbit

Germany is putting money behind warning of ballistic-missile launches from orbit, which European allies today receive from US satellites; within NATO only the US armed forces operate such a system. The finance ministry’s amended draft of the 2027 budget, which the Bundestag budget committee marks up on Thursday, raises the commitment authority of the defence line for complex services in the space domain from just under EUR 6.9 billion to just over EUR 10 billion, for years up to 2040, Augen geradeaus reports from the document. The line’s 2027 cash rises from EUR 597 million to EUR 1.07 billion. The explanatory note names three needs: the space sensor-effector network, the provision of launch services, and operating services for Satellite Based Missile Detection (SBMD).

Major General Michael Traut, commander of the Bundeswehr’s Space Command, announced the project in January and said it would be open to allies, the Financial Times reported. The note budgets launch and operation; it names no contractor and does not say who will own the satellites.

The same draft moves about EUR 11 billion within the defence budget, Handelsblatt reports: EUR 1.34 billion less for frigates, EUR 1.18 billion less for TaWAN, the Bundeswehr’s tactical radio-relay and data network, and an unallocated EUR 2 billion savings target dropped. The committee’s mark-up fixes the figures; the plenary votes in the sitting week of 23 to 27 November.

Any future security arrangement in Europe must be carried by all NATO members, Stefan Kornelius, the German government spokesman, said in Berlin on Wednesday: “If NATO members cannot reach consensus, these arrangements cannot be implemented either.” He called it a core element for the US side too, and one of four principles the Europeans present in Abu Dhabi agreed with the United States and Ukraine, not with Russia. The other three: peace in Ukraine is negotiated first, then the order in Europe; Ukraine is an “inherent part of the Euro-Atlantic security architecture”, with working groups on security guarantees; and a “no-surprise policy” of no side agreements. The understanding is being conveyed to Vladimir Putin: “That means Europe will take part in the future negotiations. We expect a response.”

Washington’s envoys did not list the principles. Jared Kushner’s sharpest line was about Europe itself: “If Europe could identify a single person to speak on its behalf, that would be a greater success than getting the Russians to include it in the talks.” He said European countries, the EU and NATO had to be involved to build consensus on next steps. Who speaks for Europe is on the agenda of Friday’s informal European Council in Dublin; António Costa’s idea of a special envoy found no consensus in 2025. Kushner and Steve Witkoff fly to Moscow on Thursday to meet Putin, then to Dublin to meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Vladimir Medinsky, who led Russia’s delegation, said it had no contact with the Europeans present and called a new European security system the central topic. Alexei Drobinin, head of policy planning at the foreign ministry, offered agreements “with individual NATO member states, which would then receive, for instance, additional individual security guarantees from the Russian Federation”. The talks ended with a prisoner exchange Kushner called “the biggest humanitarian release of prisoners” and Medinsky called agreed “in principle”; Russia’s General Staff spoke of more than 1,000 a side within two to three weeks. Dmitry Peskov said Putin was open to contacts with Europeans, “certainly” including Friedrich Merz.

A drone crossed four NATO states early on Wednesday and left on its own. It entered Lithuania from Belarus near Druskininkai at about 01:20, briefly crossed into Poland, flew north over Marijampolė, Kaunas and Panevėžys and left near Pasvalys for Latvia; by the account of Rear Admiral Giedrius Premeneckas, chief of the defence staff, it went on through Estonia into Russia. NATO fighters identified it over Kaunas and held fire because of the people below, he said. As the weather worsened the jets made several passes, and two attempts failed: one missile missed and self-destructed, and its debris was found in a remote forest in Biržai district. The armed forces assume a Ukrainian drone diverted during that night’s attack on Russia; its type and payload are unknown.

Officials have not said whose aircraft flew the mission or which missile they fired; Italian Eurofighters have held the Baltic Air Policing rotation at Šiauliai since August. Raimundas Vaikšnoras, commander of the armed forces, said the jet that tried with a second missile had technical difficulties but landed safely, and that establishing what happened was for the country flying the mission. Belarus had warned Lithuania at 22:47 on Tuesday over a technical line of three drones it was trying to neutralise; those did not enter, said Vilmantas Vitkauskas, head of the National Crisis Management Centre. The armed forces will investigate with NATO, he said, and “not all questions will be made public”.

Vilnius’s answers so far are on the ground. After the National Security Commission met, Mindaugas Sinkevičius, the prime minister, said shelters would unlock automatically on a red alert and the roughly 1,000 sirens would be centralised during 2027. In October, after a Ukrainian drone exploded at Pasvalys unengaged, he asked NATO for consultations on the rule that pilots may fire only on an object they have visually identified, and said a review would “probably be implemented within a month”; none has been announced.

“Depending on Germany for an element as strategic as the tank is an option that must be carefully re-examined,” writes François Cormier-Bouligeon, an Ensemble pour la République deputy for the Cher and the National Assembly defence committee’s rapporteur on equipment and deterrence spending, in a budget opinion just published; his December 2024 opinion had already voiced concern about the Franco-German tank programme. He calls Germany’s behaviour in cooperation “uncertain today”, reports that some of those he heard found the Leopard 2 chassis “too old and not logistically compatible”, and asks for a feasibility study of a “sovereign chassis”, a cost-benefit analysis of a national production line, and an evaluation of the Leopard 2 chassis sent to Parliament. The armament directorate had weighed a wholly French development and German tanks off the shelf and chosen KNDS France’s ASCALON turret on a Leopard 2 chassis, “probably the most rational and the fastest”, said Patrick Pailloux, its head.

Pailloux told the defence committee in October that France no longer has the industrial capacity to build the tracked part and that recreating it would cost a lot; KNDS, “of which France owns 50 per cent”, is considering production in France, “the route we prefer”. KNDS presented the concept at Eurosatory in June as CAPINT: an enhanced KNDS Deutschland chassis derived from the Leopard 2A8 under the ASCALON turret, first units in the 2030s. Berlin has agreed in principle to buy the Wegmann families’ half of KNDS, for EUR 6.6 billion according to Handelsblatt, with signing due this month; the two states would then own the group equally. Last month France’s chief of defence staff said Germany had decided to quit the tank of the Franco-German MGCS programme; both defence ministers said the programme continues.