Military spending, EU and NATO: facts, numbers and debate
Who and how do politics and analysts discuss the increase in military spending to 2% of GDP
Ahead of target of 2% of GDP for military spending by 2028.
Italy will honor its commitment to NATO to increase defense spending to 2% of GDP. That is, to go from the current 25 billion a year (68 million a day) to 38 billion a year (104 million a day), according to the data provided by the Minister of Defense, Lorenzo Guerini (Pd).
During the week, the Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, went straight to the issue by clarifying that one cannot escape from commitments with NATO. The deadline, however, is no longer 2024 but 2028. This is the position expressed yesterday by the Minister of Defense Lorenzo Guerini, a sign of peace with regard to the movement chaired by Giuseppe Conte which was asking for 2030.
And if the government raised the question of trust in the Senate on the Ukraine decree, today it arrived in the Chamber without the agenda on increasing military spending to 2% of GDP by 2024.
Current defense spending amounts to around 1.4% of GDP and Draghi reassured his international partners that he would increase this figure after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
But is the move to the cry of "the EU or NATO is asking us"?
Because the NATO spending target of 2% of GDP "appears in an informal agreement in 2006 signed by the defense ministers, relaunched in 2014 at the summit of Heads of State in Wales, with a target of 2024", recalled the newspaper Avvenire . But is all this in synergy with European defense?
According to an analysis by the European Court of Auditors in 2019 , the current military cooperation and capabilities of the member states do not correspond to the new level of ambition of the EU defense policy. At the same time, "it is essential to develop synergies between EU initiatives and other defense and security frameworks", warned the Court, referring precisely to NATO.
Here are facts, numbers and debate.
THE CLARIFICATIONS OF THE MINISTER OF DEFENSE GUERINI
Speaking of the objective of 2% of GDP for military spending, the clarifications of the defense holder arrived yesterday.
"The commitment made at the headquarters Born in 2014 and reconfirmed by all the Presidents of the Council who have followed since then provided for the achievement of 2% of GDP for defense expenses by 2024. From the moment I took the lead of this department and even in these days I have always indicated both the need to respect the 2% target, and the gradualness with which to achieve it ", underlined the Defense Minister Lorenzo Guerini interviewed yesterday by Ansa on the debate on military spending .
"From 2019 to today we have undertaken a gradual growth of resources both on the ordinary budget and on investments, which will allow us, if the upcoming budget laws confirm it, to reach the average spending of the European Union countries adhering to NATO and then, by 2028, the achievement of the 2% target ”, he added.
“The Minister of Defense, moreover, knows very well how military spending, especially investment spending, cannot be improvised. The principle of a constant gradual increase remains a fixed point. Just take the figures of the latest budget law with the forecasts up to 2024 ”, commented Il Sole 24 Ore .
THE NOTE FROM UNDER SECRETARY MULÈ
"The goal of 2 percent of GDP by 2028 is not the news of the last hour announced by Minister Guerini and that the five stars would like to announce it as a victory", the Undersecretary of Defense and deputy of Forza pointed out in a note. Italy, Giorgio Mulè. "Guerini himself had already said it in November 2019. This has been repeated over time in every possible way and is also written in the multi-year programmatic document of the Defense", concluded the undersecretary.
THE TREND OF MILITARY EXPENDITURE IN ITALY
“Indeed, Italy, since Lorenzo Guerini took over the defense department, has constantly increased its defense budget”, Aurelio Giansiracusa of AresDifesa had already noted on Startmag .
The defense budget had already gone from 21.4 billion in 2019 to 24.5 billion in 2020, equal to 1.38 and 1.41% of the gross domestic product respectively.
But the real leap forward will be in the coming years. "In 2022 it will go to 25.8 billion euros a year (1.4% of GDP), an increase of 3.4% compared to 2021 and 19.6% compared to 2019", underlined Giansiracusa.
As the Observatory of Italian public accounts points out , “the increase in 2020 is due both to the increase in appropriations (approximately 1.6 billion) and to the fall in GDP induced by the Covid-19 crisis. In 2021, appropriations also increased by another 2.2 billion compared to the previous year. Due to the increase in resources in the two-year period 2020-2021, the ratio would have grown even in the absence of the fall in GDP.
THE FINDINGS OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF AUDITORS
But what are the European projects in this regard?
As a report by the European Court of Auditors of 2019 points out, in 2016 "the European Commission proposed a marked increase in the EU budget for defense and external security" This would amount to € 22.5 billion for the period 2021-2027, against 2.8 billion euros in the 2014-2020 period ″.
According to the Court, there is a risk that the existing control systems will not be able to cope with this increase in EU spending.
Not only. “There are clear strategic differences between EU Member States, which do not perceive security threats or understand the EU's defense role necessarily in the same way. Furthermore, the Member States have different rules of engagement and a wide range of opinions on the use of military force ”.
Furthermore, "some concepts (such as those of" strategic autonomy "or" European army ") remain broad and vague", notes the Court.
“AVOID DUPLICATION AND OVERLAPPING” WITH NATO
Finally, the question of the complementarity of the EU with respect to NATO.
"It is also noted that it is crucial to ensure the coherence of EU initiatives, as well as synergies with other defense and security frameworks." This is particularly true of NATO underlines the Court. “For 22 Member States it remains the most important reference framework in the field of collective defense. A critical issue is to ensure that the EU is able to play a complementary role to that of NATO and to avoid duplication and overlap ”concluded the European Court of Auditors.
FABBRI: "BORN AND THE COMMON EUROPEAN DEFENSE ARE DIFFERENT THINGS"
If the European Court of Auditors emphasizes the risks of an overlap between European defense and NATO, there are those who recall that they are not the same thing.
““ NATO and European common defense are different things. There is a lot of confusion in Italy these days – said analyst Dario Fabbri, editor of the monthly Scenari during the La7 special on the war – NATO and common European defense are different things. There is a lot of confusion these days in Italy. NATO is opposed to the common European defense ”.
LUCIOLLI: “NATO HAS ALWAYS DEMANDED EUROPEAN DEFENSE
Fabrizio Luciolli, president of the Italian Atlantic Committee, has a different opinion.
“The facts: the EDC aborted in 1954. Since then, NATO has guaranteed Europe's security. NATO has always called for European defense. Since 2014, the government has been committed to 2% of GDP for military spending. There are those who still imagine European defense but without a credible commitment to military spending ”, commented Luciolli on Twitter.
STRATEGIC COMPASS APPROVED
Meanwhile, on 25 March the European Council approved the " strategic compass " to strengthen the defense and security of the EU within the next decade, that is to say 2030.
And among the various moves announced by the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, the one concerning the increase in military spending.
“We have to spend more. But we have to spend better. Better means avoiding duplication and gaps, ” said Borrell.
Until 2014 “it was decreasing quite rapidly. Since 2014, it has started to increase again up to 1.5% of GDP. But we have to invest more ”he added. According to Borrell, “these 200 billion euros are roughly four times the military expenditure of Russia. Together we spend almost four times as much as Russia. But certainly not with the same efficiency. 200 billion euros is the same as China's military spending. All together we spend as much as China. But, of course, having 27 different military structures is not the same as having an integrated military structure ".
CAMPORINI: EUROPEAN MILITARY INSTRUMENT ONLY IF AT THE SERVICE OF COMMON FOREIGN POLICY "
Finally, in Avvenire , General Vincenzo Camporini recalled that “The European military instrument only makes sense if it is at the service of a common foreign policy, even starting with a small group of countries. We need a foreign policy that moves on common interests with diplomacy, politics, economics. And finally, I say finally, a common military instrument ”.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/spese-militari-ue-e-nato-fatti-numeri-e-dibattito/ on Thu, 31 Mar 2022 10:13:34 +0000.