The Diplomat
Spain is the NATO country that will spend the least on Defense in 2024 based on its gross domestic product (GDP), according to an Alliance report on spending forecasts for 2024.
Specifically, the report ‘Defence Expenditure of NATO countries (2014-2024)’, made public that last Monday, indicates that Spain will allocate a total of 19,723 million euros in 2024, 1.28 percent of its GDP, for Defense spending, below countries like Luxembourg and Slovenia and far from the first countries on the list: Poland (4.12%), Estonia (3.43%) and the US (3.38). This percentage places Spain in last position among the current 31 members of NATO.
On the other hand, according to the report, all NATO countries, except Belgium and Canada, are already fulfilling the commitment to invest at least 20% of military spending in new capabilities. Spain has far surpassed it, with 30.3%.
In 2014 (when the NATO Summit was held in Wales, which established the commitment of all allies to reach two percent in defense spending before 2024), Spain also appeared in the last positions in military spending, with less than one percent, but that expenditure was higher than that of other countries that have overtaken Spain in these ten years, such as Luxembourg, Latvia (currently in fourth position, with 3.15%), Lithuania (currently sixth, with 2 .85) or Hungary.
In that year, only three countries reached two percent (the United States, Greece and the United Kingdom), while today 23 (out of 31) do so. Only Croatia (1.81), Portugal (1.55), Italy (1.49), Canada (1.37), Belgium (1.30), Luxembourg, Slovenia (both with 1.29) and Spain (1.28). Significantly, the list is headed by countries bordering Russia or Belarus, such as Poland, Estonia or the aforementioned Latvia and Lithuania. The United States is the only country that has reduced military spending (relative to GDP) in these ten years (from more than 3.5 percent to the current 3.38).
The two percent goal, set in Wales, became in 2023 the “minimum investment floor” among the allies to face the Russian invasion of Ukraine. On June 30, 2022, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced at the end of the NATO Summit in Madrid his intention to present before the Spanish Parliament a “country agreement” to reach two percent in Defense spending. in 2029 (thus five years after the 2024 date set at the 2014 NATO Summit).
Two weeks later, the Congress approved a proposed resolution of the PP agreed with the PSOE to promote the increase of the Defense budget in order to place it at two percent of the GDP, in line with what was decided at the Summit of NATO in Madrid. This agreement was rejected by the then minority partner in the coalition government, Unidas Podemos.
