On July 11-12, a NATO summit will be held in Vilnius, including a new platform, the NATO-Ukraine Council. Jens Stoltenberg shared information that 11 countries of the Alliance invest 2% of their GDP in defence. Some countries have already crossed this threshold. Notably, in 2014 the number of 2%+ countries was only 3. On the 11th, the secretary general plans to call on countries to increase defence sector funding to at least 2% of GDP in 2023.
According to a document published on the NATO website, the leaders in terms of GDP and defence financing ratios are the states:
- Poland — from 3.9%;
- USA — from 3.49%;
- Greece - 3.1%.
Next come Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, Romania, Hungary, Latvia, Great Britain, and Slovakia. According to Stoltenberg, Canada and the EU countries will increase the percentage of investment in defence by 8.3% — this figure exceeds all indicators of the past 20 years.
