A few weeks before the NATO summit, the defense alliance presented a new overview of defense spending. According to this, 23 of 32 member states will reach the two percent target – including Germany.
Germany has reported estimated defense spending of 90.6 billion euros to NATO for the current year, which would clearly meet the alliance’s two percent target.
According to a new NATO overview, the record sum corresponds to a share of the forecast German gross domestic product (GDP) of 2.12 percent. The rate would therefore be higher than expected at the beginning of the year.
23 states will reach target
Against the backdrop of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the German government has set itself the goal of achieving the NATO target for defence spending agreed in 2014 for the first time this year. It stipulates that member states should set aside at least two percent of their GDP for this purpose each year.
According to the new figures, 23 allies are expected to reach or even exceed the target this year. In 2014, only the USA, Great Britain and Greece met this target. Last year, according to NATO figures, eleven of the allies invested two percent of their GDP or more in defense.
Poland at the top – Spain, Slovenia and Luxembourg behind
The current leaders in terms of the ratio are Poland with defense spending of 4.12 percent of GDP and Estonia with 3.43 percent. Both countries are ahead of the USA, which is expected to reach 3.38 percent in 2024 according to the latest estimates.
Countries such as Spain, Slovenia and Luxembourg are at the bottom of the ranking, currently at less than 1.3 percent. Belgium (1.30 percent), Canada (1.37 percent), Italy (1.49 percent) and Portugal (1.55 percent) will also miss the NATO target by a long way.
According to recent estimates, the current 32 NATO countries will spend around 1.5 trillion US dollars (around 1.4 trillion euros) on defense in 2024. Excluding inflation and exchange rate fluctuations, this would represent an increase of 10.9 percent compared to the previous year. The European allies and Canada alone would even see an increase of 17.9 percent, according to the information.
Praise for “biggest increase in decades”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who is currently in Washington to prepare for the NATO summit, praised the development as “the biggest increase in decades” at a meeting with US President Joe Biden. The figures showed that the European allies and Canada were assuming their share of responsibility for protecting all members of the NATO alliance.
Biden spoke of a “record number” of allies who had now reached the target for defense spending. His presumed challenger in the upcoming presidential election, former US President Donald Trump, had repeatedly pushed for higher defense budgets from allies during his time in office.
Stoltenberg defends Trump
In February, Trump said during a campaign rally that he would not come to the aid of NATO allies in the event of a Russian attack if they did not spend enough on their defense. Instead, he would encourage Russia to “do whatever it wants to them” in such a case.
In an interview with the “Welt” newspaper and US media, Stoltenberg defended Trump against the accusation that these statements were questioning the military alliance. “Donald Trump did not primarily criticize NATO. His criticism was directed against NATO members who do not invest enough in NATO,” said Stoltenberg.