Everyone more or less agrees on the 2%. No one wants to put too much emphasis on timing to achieve the goal. The Prime Minister Mario Draghi just made an agenda of the brothers of Italy to explain this Italy intends to honor commitments made with NATO increase its defense budget by up to two percentage points of GDP. This means that we should increase from the current annual spending on the army and armaments of 27 billion euros About 38 billion Theoretically, the agreements with NATO stipulate that 2% will come reached in 2024. Draghi did not explicitly refer to the date, but his words seemed to imply a reference to that deadline and went a little further than the parliamentary resolution, which does not contain any specific calendar information.
Secretary of Defense this afternoon Lorenzo Guerini However, he specified: “From 2019 to date we have undertaken a gradual growth of resources both in the regular budget and in investments, which, if confirmed by the forthcoming budgetary laws, will allow us to reach the average expenditure of the member countries of the European Union to NATO and then until 2028, the achievement of the 2% target”. In addition, the minister had already declared in 2019 that the deadline expires in 2024 “It’s not realistically achievable”. Guerini’s position is very similar to that of the leader of the 5 Star Movement, Giuseppe Conte, who said yesterday: “It is one thing whether this commitment has to be respected in 2024, an account if by 2028, Another account is to respect it until 2030, and then specifies: “We do not buy weapons for Ukraine: this is a different perspective and for which we “go from a European fund of 5 billion. And we didn’t even spend one”.
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After the invasion of Ukraine I am Pledges to raise defense funds poured in. In addition to Italy, Denmark, Poland, Romania and Spain have also confirmed. And then there is Germany, which has not only billed a flat rate for expenses 100 billion euros “OneOffs” intended primarily to buy 35 F35 jets and one Armed Forces Rapid, but also intend to put defense spending on a stable base of at least 2% of GDP. the Military Budget Berlin it will therefore go from about 60 to 90 billion euros. However, the information about the times was rather vague. As well as Spain was vague which spends 15 billion a year on defense and should almost double it. The Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez He stated that this will happen “in the next few years”. Don’t circle any dates on the calendar to hit 2%, not even that Belgiumits prime minister Alexander de Croo He said: “We know our defense spending needs to increase, we will increase the budget to improve operations over the next 3 years.” Brussels will probably step on the gas pedal a bit, but officially the 2% target remains 2030
Already today (the data refer to 2021) among the 30 member countries of the Atlantic Alliance there are those that spend 2% or more. In 2021, the UK rose to 2.3%, the Poland at 2.1%. Then there is the “anomalous” case of Greece which is even 3.8% more than the United States (3.5%), but this has to do with a not so easy neighbor like Turkey. It must be said that since the number is calculated in relation to the size of the economy, Athens’ percentage has skyrocketed after the severe recession that hit the country. In absolute terms, spending on army and armaments has remained more or less constant. France is around 2%, while Germany, at 1.5%, ended up just ahead of Italy (1.4%) and Spain at 1%.
Although spending on armies and weapons collapsed along with the Berlin Wall, in the last 5 years budgets have started to expand again, even after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Collectively, the countries of the European Union today i far more than Russia: 200 billion versus 61 billion. However, the degree of integration of the various armed forces is modest. And integration costs. Germany’s choice for the F35 is also motivated by the fact that they are operational aircraft many other NATO countries and thus be more easily integrated into a joint defense operation. For those who want to see the glass half full sparked by the Ukraine conflict, this could be a first step towards creating a European army, with Germany, France, Italy and Spain as the backbone of the Union’s defense system. With a view to the future, Europe could at least partially emancipate itself from the “protection of the USA.