French defense budget shortfall may hit 90 billion dollars by 2015

There could be a shortfall of 40 to 70 billion euros (52 to 91 billion U.S. dollars) for French defense budget by 2015, according to French Defense Ministry's 2005 projections, local daily La Tribune reported on Wednesday.

Quoting a confidential document entitled "Fiscal year 2020, financial needs and capacity analysis," the economic daily explains that the defense ministry will have to save 30 billion euros by 2015.

The document, written by the armed forces headquarters, the General Delegation for Armaments (DGA) and the general administrative secretariat, did "not concern a fiscal year, but rather an evaluation of defense needs," the defense ministry said when questioned by the daily.

According to La Tribune, the document makes three assumptions. In the first, "with the current resource allocations, two percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) with a one percent annual increase in resources, there will be a shortfall of 40 billion euros in 2015."

The second states that "if the defense effort does not increase by one percent in volume, there will be a shortfall of 70 billion euros in 2015." And lastly, in the third, judged to be the most unreliable, according to the daily, "the goal is attained if resource allocations are increased to 2.25 percent of GDP."

The document also "takes a swipe at Defense Ministry's performance under the leadership of Michele Alliot-Marie, pointing at the execution deficit amounting to 4 billion euros between 2003 and 2008," said the daily.

The defense ministry was not immediately available for comments.

Source: Xinhua