Europe has revealed whether it will be able to spend 5% of GDP on defense, as Trump calls for

15.01.2025/12/44 XNUMX:XNUMX    564

 

Defense ministers from the five largest European countries with the largest military spending said they want to continue increasing defense investment. But they see it as difficult to meet the target of increasing spending to 5% of GDP set by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, the Associated Press reports.

The defense ministers of Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Poland met near Warsaw on Monday, January 13. This is the second meeting in the new format that was approved after Trump was elected US president last year.

At the beginning of the meeting, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius stressed that Europe supports a just peace for Ukraine. However, there are fears that Trump may push Kyiv to make unacceptable concessions to Russia, the agency emphasized.

Journalists shared that the issue of military spending was also discussed during the meeting after Trump called on NATO allies to increase their spending to 5% of GDP. So far, Poland has come closest to this level with 4%.

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“I just think that static debates about percentages are not going to help us if they don’t ultimately lead to the implementation of what NATO has agreed together, what the goals should be. I think that’s the main thing,” Pistorius said.

The head of the German Ministry of Defense explained that if Germany were to invest 5% of GDP in defense, this would be comparable to spending a little more than 40% of the entire national budget.

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His Italian counterpart, Guido Crosetto, noted that his country's government understands that defense spending needs to be increased, but this must be balanced with economic recovery.

"Increasing defense spending during an economic crisis is more difficult than in other times. If we combine these two factors, that is, make the European defense industry one of the ways to revive the economy, we will be able to combine these two factors," he stressed.

French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu believes that while security spending will increase, not all of it should be spent exclusively on military purposes. He suggested using it to protect society from cyberattacks, terrorism, and other non-military threats.




“And you all keep repeating 2%, 3%, 4%, without really understanding what the point is. Well, let me be honest. The situation is worse than during the Cold War. It is worse simply because we have new areas that have become militarized, and they are largely digital,” he said.

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Trump's demand for NATO allies

Recall that US President-elect Donald Trump called on European NATO allies to allocate 5% of their GDP to defense. This demand caused a mixed reaction in Europe.

Business Insider noted that no NATO country, including the United States, currently spends 5% of its GDP on defense. The closest to this figure is Poland, which spent 4% of its GDP on defense last year.


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