Germany's cuts to its development spending will be a serious blow to aid organizations.

"We are deeply concerned. And it will be felt by people in the Global South," said Oliver Müller, head of Caritas International, which is involved in emergency and disaster relief worldwide.

Müller is appalled at the draft of Germany's 2026 federal budget, which the federal government approved on Wednesday.

According to the draft, the budget of the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development will fall below the €10 billion ($11.4 billion) mark for the first time since 2018. The budget had already shrunk by almost €1 billion from 2024 to 2025.

What Müller finds equally alarming is that the Foreign Office's budget for humanitarian emergency aid is set to be cut by more than half by 2026.

Caritas has been able to fund several large projects thanks to government money, "but these projects will be eliminated without replacement," Müller said.

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Müller emphasized that Caritas International won't be making across-the-board cuts.

"There simply are humanitarian crises that we think are so serious and terrible that we will continue to use our own........

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