German government wants to broaden defence production

The German government is pushing for more industrial companies to get involved in defence production.

"Until now, defence companies and other important sectors of our industry have mainly worked in parallel. That should and must change," Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on Tuesday. 

Pistorius had been meeting representatives of industry and associations in Berlin together with German Economy Minister Katherina Reiche.

Together, they presented the platform SVI-Connect that is intended to enable existing defence supply chains to be quickly supplemented with suitable resources from other industrial sectors.

"Security policy is now always also economic policy," said Reiche. 

"We want to and must increase production capacities," said Pistorius. "And of course, it helps us if we integrate new suppliers into the value chains, thereby making the value chain itself more secure for the future."

However, industry representatives complained that there was still too much bureaucracy in the sector.

Peter Leibinger, the president of the Federation of German Industry (BDI) said "the overly complicated procurement process must be radically simplified."

He added that civilian industry must also develop the skills to serve the armed forces. "We have to learn more about this," he said.