Germany's Defense Procurement Reform: Legal Acceleration for Strategic Rearmament
Germany is institutionalizing a sweeping legal reform to accelerate military procurement and defense industrial readiness through the new Bundeswehr Planning and Procurement Acceleration Act (June 2025). The law extends and deepens temporary emergency measures introduced in 2022, transforming them into a permanent regulatory framework that enables fast-track acquisition of weapons and military technologies. Key provisions include broad exemptions from EU public procurement rules (via Article 346 TFEU), a doubling of the direct award threshold to €100,000, advance payments to startups and high-tech suppliers, and legal shields to prevent bid protests from halting contracts. For institutional investors and defense-oriented funds, this reform signals a strategic shift: Germany is not only ramping up defense spending but restructuring its procurement law to ensure capital deployment turns into capability delivery. The reforms reduce regulatory friction, open the defense market to innovation, and prioritize rapid scalability—positioning the German defense ecosystem as a more liquid, responsive and investible landscape within Europe’s rearmament cycle.