The goal of NATO countries contributing at least 2% of their GDP to defense is getting closer. Not all of them have achieved it yet, but by the end of this year more than half of the 31 countries that make up the Alliance will reach a commitment that they set ten years ago, the secretary general of the organization assured yesterday, Jens Stoltenberg.
In 2014 the countries of the Alliance committed at a summit of leaders in Wales to invest 2% of GDP in defence, although at the last summit in Vilnius the countries marked that the objective was not a roof, but the minimum requirement. Ten years ago, only three countries met it, but Stoltenberg said he expects that by the end of this year there will be eighteen.
“A record”, according to the head of the Alliance, in statements to the press just before the meeting of the Support Contact Group for Ukraine held yesterday at the NATO headquarters in Brussels. “It is six times more than in 2014”, he added.
Stoltenberg also stressed that European NATO member countries will invest a total of 380 billion dollars in defense. “For the first time, it represents 2% of its combined GDP”. The figures support this increase: last year, Europe as a whole saw the largest increase in defense in the last 30 years, according to independent data from the Stockholm International Institute for Peace Studies.
Also, since 2014 “the European allies and Canada have invested more than 600,000 million dollars in defense. An unusual increase of 11%”, emphasized Stoltenberg. However, despite the announcement there are still thirteen countries that do not comply or are far from it, such as Spain or Belgium, although they have made increases in this regard, especially since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, almost two years ago. In the case of Spain, its goal is to reach it by 2029, although the Government has always insisted that the involvement of the country in the various missions in which NATO is also taken into account present Others, such as Germany, have recently met the target or could even surpass it this year, as their defense minister explained yesterday. The country had not reached this figure since the Cold War.
The announced data serves to stand up and calm the transatlantic waters also on the verge of the Alliance turning 75, a celebration that will come at a summit of heads of state and government in July in Washington. It also comes a few days after the words of the former president of the United States, Donald Trump, who revolted many allied countries by haranguing Russia to do “whatever it wants” with any country that does not spend enough on defense.
The statements were a bucket of cold water, and the head of the Alliance pointed out the importance of NATO when the United States needed it. In fact, he recalled that the first and only time that Article 5 was activated, that of collective security, was after the attacks of 11-S. “The United States has never fought a war alone, it has always been with its allies, from the Korean War to the Afghanistan War (…) Any suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all our security”, he added.
Stoltenberg also wanted to make clear the objective of an organization that has been able to prevent any attack thanks to collective security. “This is the idea of ??NATO, if you attack one, you attack them all (…) Actions and words matter”, he said.
However, he also urged that countries that do not comply must still comply, because Trump’s criticism was not against the Alliance, but about the fact that the allies are not spending enough on NATO and that is legitimate. in addition to being a recurring demand among the different administrations of the United States. “The good news is that it is already being done, that more and more allies are complying and others have promised that they will get there very soon”, he added.
For their part, the majority of Defense Ministers yesterday tried to iron out Trump’s words by referring more than one to the electoral context in which he said them. “I think we would do very well not to constantly look at what the presidential candidates are doing or look at the elections, but rather do our homework”, recommended the German leader, Boris Pistorius.
His Estonian counterpart, Hanno Pevkur, expressed himself in the same vein, questioning whether the United States would leave NATO if Trump returns to the White House. “We are stronger together and I see no reason why we should not continue with this unity (…) The message is clear, we all have to do more and I hope that by the end of this year more countries will comply with the ‘goal’, said Pevkur. Also the Canadian, Bill Blair, who joked that he tends to “ignore the comments during the elections” and that the United States should be judged by what they have done so far for the Alliance.
