On February 1, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced that he did not support US President Donald Trump's idea of increasing defense spending in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to 5% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of member countries.
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| Europe's 'big brother' responded to Mr. Trump's demands on NATO but admitted that one thing had to be done. (Source: Deposit Photo) |
"Our 5 % GDP is equivalent to 42% of the federal budget (Germany), which means that for every 2 Euros the federal government spends, 1 Euro is spent on defense. In total, Germany will have to spend a total of 230 billion Euros (238 billion USD). We cannot afford nor can we spend such a large amount of money," Pistorius told Tagesspiegel.
Mr Pistorius added that in the future, Germany will have to spend more, even beyond the 2% of GDP that the German government currently allocates. However, the German defense minister stressed that all decisions within NATO are made collectively.
NATO guidelines currently require member states to commit to spending 2% of their GDP on defense, a target agreed by the bloc’s leaders in 2014. According to NATO’s most recent assessment, 23 of the bloc’s 32 members will meet that target by 2024, compared to just three in 2014.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also expressed his opinion: "That's a huge amount of money", and pointed out that NATO has a very specific decision-making process on defense spending and the current requirement is 2% of GDP. Although opposing Mr. Trump's proposal, the German Chancellor admitted that the country "must do more for security" and emphasized that Berlin has doubled its annual defense spending to nearly 80 billion euros in recent years.
Previously, the Pentagon announced on January 30 that US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte had a phone call to discuss strengthening the military alliance.
The Pentagon's statement released on January 30 said the discussion included "building a stronger, more militarily capable NATO" in addition to increasing defense spending by allies.
In addition, the two sides also discussed the importance of "expanding the defense industrial base's capacity on both sides of the Atlantic."
Source: https://baoquocte.vn/my-de-xuat-tang-chi-tieu-quoc-phong-nato-len-muc-5-bo-truong-quoc-phong-duc-tuyen-bo-khong-ung-ho-302869.html
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