NATO countries are increasing defense spending only moderately

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Compared to 2021, this represented an increase of 1.9 percent, according to a report published Tuesday by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

The main reason why the increase was not higher despite the Russian attack on Ukraine is that the budgets for 2022 were already planned by the governments in the previous year and thus before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A sharper increase is expected for 2023.

Stoltenberg was critical of the developments on Tuesday. “We are moving in the right direction, but we are not going as fast as the dangerous world we live in requires,” said the Norwegian. He expects the heads of state and government to agree on ambitious targets at the next summit in July. Defense spending of 2 percent of gross domestic product should become the new lower limit.

According to the latest NATO figures, Germany increased its expenditure relevant to the alliance by ten percent from approximately 52.4 to 57.7 billion euros. However, the NATO goal was once again far missed. According to the comparative figures, the Federal Republic of Germany spent about 1.5 and not the planned 2.0 percent of its gross domestic product on defense.

She was not alone in that. According to Stoltenberg, only seven states would meet the 2 percent target by 2022. In addition to the US, Great Britain and Poland, these were the three Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia and Greece.

(SDA)

Source: Blick