According to a report presented on Thursday by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, of the 31 allies last year (Sweden has only been there for a few days), only eleven had defense spending of at least two percent of their gross domestic product. The other states were in some cases significantly lower.
According to NATO’s latest calculations, Germany achieved a quota of 1.66 percent in 2023. At the bottom of the ranking are countries such as Spain (1.24 percent), Belgium (1.21 percent) and Luxembourg (1.01 percent). The leader in the quota was Poland with defense spending amounting to 3.92 percent of GDP. The country is still ahead of the USA, which reached 3.24 percent in 2023 according to the most recent calculations.
The numbers are particularly explosive because of the scenario of Donald Trump returning to the White House after the US presidential election in November. During his term in office from 2017 to 2021, the Republican had repeatedly complained about what he considered to be too low defense spending by European allies and at times even threatened that the USA would leave the alliance.
Trump recently made it clear during a campaign appearance that he would not provide American support to allies with low defense spending in the event of a Russian attack.
NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg once again appealed for greater support for Ukraine. More than two years after the start of the Russian invasion, the country is not running out of courage, but rather out of ammunition. It is therefore urgently necessary for NATO allies to intensify the supply of ammunition and weapons to Ukraine, Stoltenberg said in Brussels on Thursday. “It’s a question of political will to make these decisions.”
Dispute over succession
Just four months before the NATO anniversary summit in Washington, a dispute broke out over Stoltenberg’s successor as Secretary General. The preferred candidate of the United States, Germany, France and Great Britain is the long-time Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
Eastern European member states in particular reject Rutte. Romanian President Klaus Iohannis has even openly declared his candidacy against the Dutchman. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is also against Rutte. According to diplomats, Iohannis has little support in the alliance. The favorite among Eastern Europeans is Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas.
