{"id":424841,"date":"2025-04-22T17:06:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T15:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/04\/22\/nato-spagna-2-per-cento-difesa-sanchez\/"},"modified":"2025-04-22T18:07:12","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T16:07:12","slug":"nato-spain-to-meet-2-per-cent-of-gdp-defence-target-by-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/04\/22\/nato-spain-to-meet-2-per-cent-of-gdp-defence-target-by-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Nato, Spain to meet 2 per cent of GDP defence target by 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – In the end,\u00a0Spain, too, gave in<\/strong> to pressure from Donald Trump<\/strong>.\u00a0Just a couple of months after announcing that he would meet the\u00a0NATO-agreed target of\u00a02 per cent of GDP in defence spending by 2029<\/strong>, the social-democratic premier,\u00a0Pedro S\u00e1nchez<\/strong>, reconsidered and adjusted his goal<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0Now, Madrid is aiming to hit the target by the end of the year<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It was mid-February when, bucking the trend of all other Alliance members, the Socialist prime minister announced that the Spanish government would use all the time between now and the end of the decade<\/a> to gradually increase its military budget to 2 per cent of gross domestic product<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

This goal had been set at the political level by NATO partners back in 2014\u2014after Vladimir Putin<\/strong>‘s Russia had unilaterally annexed the Crimean Peninsula<\/strong> and supported Ukrainian separatists in the Donbass<\/strong>\u2014and then was translated into a binding goal in 2022<\/strong>, during the summit held precisely in Madrid where, moreover, Finland and Sweden had been formally invited within the Alliance.\u00a0However, as certified by Secretary-General\u00a0Mark Rutte<\/strong>\u00a0last December<\/a>,\u00a02 per cent is no longer enough<\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n

And so S\u00e1nchez unveiled today (April 22) the “National Plan for the Development and Promotion of Defense and Security Technology<\/strong>,” with which he puts \u20ac10.47 billion on the table by the end of 2025<\/strong>, to be spent mainly on expanding the size of the armed forces<\/strong>, purchasing new equipment<\/strong> and modernising technological infrastructure<\/strong> (especially in satellite networking, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity). The defence budget will thus rise to a record 33.12 billion<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Pedro<\/a>
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez (photo: European Council)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The leader of the Socialist Party (PSOE)<\/strong>\u00a0has clarified that this money comes from\u00a0unused funds from\u00a0<\/strong>NextGeneration EU<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0and other budget items for\u00a0fiscal year 2023<\/strong><\/span>, and will therefore require neither painful cuts in social spending nor deficit financing. Moreover, since this is essentially a reallocation of already allocated resources, they will not need to go through parliamentary approval<\/strong>, a potentially narrow passage for the minority<\/strong> executive<\/strong> that depends on external support from the radical left and Independents.<\/p>\n

The prime minister acknowledged differences in views with the government’s junior coalition partner, Sumar, especially regarding investment in armaments<\/strong>.\u00a0But he assured that\u00a0<\/span>there is\u00a0<\/strong>a “consensus” on the goal and most of the plan’s points<\/strong>, which are\u00a0structured into<\/span>\u00a0five sections. He assured that the national GDP will benefit with an\u00a0<\/span>increase of between 0.4 and 0.7 per cent<\/strong>, which will allow the economy to experience a\u00a0<\/span>new phase of “reindustrialisation”<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The timing of the announcement is no coincidence: tomorrow is the deadline for NATO members to notify their spending plans for the current year. These plans will then be the focus of discussions at the next Alliance summit, scheduled for late June in The Hague<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

To date, Spain is the member of the organisation that<\/span>\u00a0spends the least on its defence in relation to GDP<\/strong>.<\/span>\u00a0Estimates for 2024 speak of 1.28 per cent, worth more than \u20ac17 billion. Along with Madrid,\u00a0six other countries have<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0not yet reached the 2 per cent target<\/strong>: six EU members (Belgium, Croatia, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, and Slovenia) and\u00a0Canada. During his recent visit to Washington<\/a>, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni<\/strong> promised that Rome will reach the target by the Hague summit.<\/p>\n

\"Giorgia<\/a>
U.S. President Donald Trump welcomes Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in the Oval Office, April 17, 2025 (photo via Imagoeconomica)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

S\u00e1nchez has thus found himself under increasing international pressure<\/strong> to bring Madrid’s spending in line with that of its allies, especially in the prospect of a potential U.S. disengagement from the Old Continent<\/strong> (a prospect that, indeed, seems more real than ever<\/a>). With her ReArm Europe plan, Ursula von der Leyen<\/strong> has already given the Twenty-Seven carte blanche to increase their defence spending without incurring infringement procedures<\/strong> under the Stability and Growth Pact.<\/p>\n

After all, the White House led by Donald Trump<\/strong> has long been urging its European partners to take direct charge of their own security, as well as the management of peace in Ukraine<\/strong> once hostilities are over, by prospecting new military spending benchmarks of up to 5 per cent of GDP<\/strong> (a target that even the US will not reach that easily, allocating less than 3.4 per cent to defense for now). For the time being, it seems more likely that at The Hague the tycoon will ask\u00a0for\u00a0at least 3 per cent<\/strong>, much to the chagrin of allies such as Rome and Madrid, who are already struggling<\/span>\u00a0to reach 2 per cent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez is backtracking on his earlier commitment to hit the Alliance target by 2029 by allocating previously unused resources from other items in the national budget to military spending. But Washington is already pushing to hit 3 per cent (if not more)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":424832,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[30809,25681],"tags":[26411,30515,26329,31070,27709,26870],"class_list":["post-424841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-defence-security","category-politics","tag-nato-en-8","tag-mark-rule-one","tag-expenses-military-2-en","tag-pedro-sanchez-en","tag-spain-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424841"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":424865,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424841\/revisions\/424865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}