European NATO members are mulling over increasing their spending target from two to three percent of their GDP, the Financial Times reports. Some commentators have argued the spending target may need to go up to four percent in order to meet threats posed following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago.
The UK currently spends 2.3 percent of its budget on defence and although the government has pledged to raise this to 2.5 percent, it has not provided a timeline of when it will do so.
The UK’s armed forces have endured numerous rounds of cuts in recent years.
Between 2009/10 and 2016/17, real-terms defence spending fell by 22 precent and the British Army now has just 76,950 personnel as of 2023. This is down from 109,600 personnel in 2000.
If defence spending is raised to three percent of GDP it will need to up the £54bn it spent last year, which only amounted to 2.3 per cent of GDP, according to parliament.
Increasing it to three percent would mean a total of £70bn was needed, so at least another £16.5bn.
The Royal United Services Insitute (Rusi) predicted it could be as much as £20bn. Earlier this year, Rusi pointed out the MoD faces a large funding gap in the current financial year and that in December 2023, the National Audit Office identified a deficit in the equipment plan of £3n for 2024/25 and a further deficit of £3.9bn in 2025/26.
It said the British Ministry of Defence will also need to find an extra £1bn each year to fund the above-budget costs of the 2023 and 2024 pay settlements for the armed forces.
This comes as Mark Rutte, the alliance’s secretary general, told the BBC that US president-elect Donald Trump was “right” in pushing for more defence spending. Mr Trump has, in the past, complained about European NATO members not paying their fair share into the alliance.
Mr Rutte said: “My plea here is, if you have children, grandchildren, if you think our way of life should be preserved: democracy, our values, then we have to prioritise defence.”
Asked whether he was worried president-elect Trump could turn his back on the international alliance if Europe does not up its defence spending, Mr Rutte said: “We will spend more”.
He later added: “I don’t want to spend more because of Donald Trump. He’s right that we have to spend more absolutely, he was right, he’s still right.”
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