Against the background of the threat from Russia, the NATO countries have agreed to tighten the overall target for national defense spending, writes the German magazine Der Spiegel.
In the future, 31 countries of the alliance decided to spend on defense at least 2% of their GDP. The DPA news agency initially reported, citing alliance circles, that the procedure for making a written decision was completed in preparation for next week’s NATO summit. Diplomats confirmed this to Reuters.
According to Der Spiegel, the new 2 percent target should now be included in the declaration of the NATO summit, which begins Tuesday in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. The summit will also discuss strengthening Russia’s deterrence and further support for Ukraine.
The previous goal was for all allies to approach the benchmark of spending at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense by 2024.
For Germany and nearly 20 other NATO countries, the new goal means they will have to significantly increase their defense spending in the coming years. Germany recently increased its NATO-related spending by 10 percent to about €64 billion. However, the alliance’s goal has so far remained far from being achieved. According to current comparisons, NATO estimates that Germany will reach a quota of 1.57 percent this year.
With the help of the €100 billion special defense fund decided upon last year, the 2% quota should be reached in 2024. However, it is unclear what will happen after the special fund is spent. According to a study by the Institute for German Economics (IW), the share of defense spending in German GDP could fall below 2% again as early as 2026.
Recently, the leader in economic power and defense spending within NATO has been the United States. According to estimates released Friday, their military spending now stands at 3.49 percent of GDP. With $860 billion, Washington recently planned more than twice as much money for defense as the rest of the alliance combined.
In addition to the U.S., NATO recently estimated that only Britain, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Romania and Slovakia would reach the 2 percent target in 2023, the German magazine Der Spiegel concluded.
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