NATO Allies Pledge to Allocate a Minimum of 2% of GDP to Defense Expenditure, Say Diplomats

NATO allies have reached an agreement to increase the alliance’s target for military spending to a minimum of two
percent of national GDP, according to two diplomats who spoke to Reuters on Friday.

The 31 allies have agreed to an enduring commitment to invest at least two percent of their GDP into their militaries
in the future, as confirmed by two anonymous diplomats, in line with a previous report by German news agency DPA.

This agreement on the new spending target was one of the outstanding issues ahead of the upcoming two-day NATO summit
in Vilnius next week.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg aims to make the current military spending target of two percent of national
GDP a minimum requirement rather than just a goal.

In 2023, only 11 out of the 31 members of the alliance will meet the old target, according to NATO estimates. The goal was
initially set in 2014, when NATO leaders agreed to gradually increase defense spending to two percent of their GDP within
a decade.

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The 11 allies who will meet the target are the United States, Britain, Poland, Greece, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland,
Romania, Hungary, Latvia, and Slovakia.

Bringing up the rear are Canada, Slovenia, Turkey, Spain, Belgium, and Luxembourg, whose defense spending is currently
below 1.4 percent of GDP.

– Reporting by Sabine Siebold; Editing by Leslie Adler and Jonathan Oatis