Jens Stolenberg, NATO Secretary General, believes that NATO member countries should spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense spending and that a new commitment will have to be set at the Vilnius summit scheduled for next month. of July. Eleven Member States had reached or exceeded this objective in 2020. They were eight in 2021 and are down to seven in 2022. “We expected more, but GDP increased more than expected for some allies”, notes Jens Stoltenberg during the presentation of the NATO annual report.
The seven countries that remained members of the 2% club last year are Greece (3.46%), the United States (3.46%), Lithuania (2.47%), Poland (2.42 %), the United Kingdom (2.16%) and Estonia (2.12%). With the exception of Lithuania and Poland, the military budgets of these countries are nevertheless down compared to 2021. Croatia (1.91%) and France (1.89%) are close to 2 % but their defense spending has fallen compared to 2021.
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Germany remains at 1.49% despite the commitment to create a special fund of 100 billion euros dedicated to the Bundeswehr. Belgium and Denmark also announced an increase in their military spending in 2022 following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, but remain below 1.5% of their GDP.
NATO countries committed in 2014, following the annexation of Crimea by Russia, to increase their defense spending to 2% of their GDP in 2024. “Many” member states of the organization “ have announced significant increases in their defense spending since the invasion of Russia. These promises must now materialize because defense spending has underpinned everything we have been doing since 2014,” argues Jens Stoltenberg.
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“We are moving in the right direction, but not as fast as the dangerous world we live in requires,” he insists. And to add: “It is obvious that we must do more and do it faster. At our summit in Vilnius in July, I expect the allies to agree on a new, more ambitious commitment and for the 2% of GDP target to be a minimum, a threshold to invest in our defence”.
