Increasing the NATO Defence Budget

by Meifan Honcharuk
Saturday, July 8, 2023
1 MIN
Increasing the NATO Defence Budget

In 2023, the percentage of defence sector funding in the EU and Canada will exceed the levels of the last decades

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.

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