NATO
German defense spending at 90.6 billion euros
Boris Pistorius (l) expects that more money will be needed for defense in the future: Instead of NATO’s two percent target, three or three and a half percent may be necessary. Photo
© Kay Nietfeld/dpa
A few weeks before the NATO summit, the Secretary General presented a new overview of the Allies’ defense spending. The figures are impressive – and are also intended to send a message.
Against the backdrop of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, Germany has set itself the goal of reaching the NATO target for defence spending agreed in 2014 for the first time this year. It stipulates that member states should allocate at least two percent of their GDP to this annually.
According to the new figures, 23 alliance states are expected to reach or even exceed the target this year. The leaders in terms of the quota are currently 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.
NATO Secretary General: “Biggest increase in decades”
Countries at the bottom of the rankings are Spain, Slovenia and Luxembourg, which are currently below 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 states will spend a total of 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 figures.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who is currently in Washington to prepare for the NATO summit, praised the development at a meeting with US President Joe Biden as the “biggest increase in decades”. The figures showed that the European allies and Canada were taking on 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.