Eight years after making a commitment to increase defense spending 2% of GDP continues to fall short of what was promised at the 2014 Cardiff Summit in Spain. Since then, none of the two Prime Ministers present at La Moncloa, neither Mariano Rajoy nor Pedro Sánchez, have achieved a stated target. as a suggestion rather than a requirement.
Now, however, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised questions from countries like Britain. more participation to their allies.
How much has been allocated to defense?
Figures vary by source. In 2021, the last year in which data from Spain, the Ministry of Defense and NATO can be correlated, 9,412 million euros, according to the 2021 General Government Budget (PGE), or a 0.78% of GDP. According to the military agency, the allocated budget was 12,208 million euros, or 1.03% of Spanish GDP, causing a dance in the numbers that can only be explained by whether or not various external organizations are included.
How much will Spain invest in 2022?
The latest PGE predicts a significant increase in defense spending. Specifically and according to ministry data, it is 7.9%. In this way, Spain will reach 10,155 million Euros in 2022, that is, 0.8% of your GDP.
However, according to the latest data released by NATO, Spain allocated 13,136 million euros, or 1.01% of its GDP, to defense in 2022.
When does Spain expect to reach the target?
Sánchez has expressed several times his intention to reach 2% of GDP in Defense “in the coming years”, but there is no exact timetable at the moment and the idea is that Reaching the target by 2029. To do this, and according to NATO calculations, which are more optimistic than PGE’s estimates, Spain has practically double spending Invest at least another 11,000 million euros in defense over the next seven years, to reach 24,000.
Was the 2% ever met?
Not since consensus was reached at the Cardiff Summit in 2014. At that time Spain allocated 5,743 million euros to Defense, that is 0.55% of your GDPaccording to ministry data. The historical development shows that the minimum was reached at 0.52% of GDP and 5,785 million in 2016, but this was from 2017, the next year when Spain started to increase its investment significantly. It amounted to 0.66% of GDP that year, and a further €2,000 million was invested in Defense (7,635 million).