Laurence Dollimore
SPAIN has agreed to boost its military spending by more than 80% by 2024.
It comes after US president Donald Trump blasted NATO members for not contributing enough to the military alliance.
End-of-year forecasts suggest that only five of the 28 Member states – the US, the UK, Estonia, Poland and Greece – have met the 2% of GDP target agreed in 2014.
Spain will have spent 0.92% of its 2017 budget on defense, making it one of the lowest spending in the alliance, alongside Belgium and Luxembourg.
NATO has demanded answers from the 23 Member states that haven’t made the mark, inspiring the Spanish government to commit €18 billion over the coming years to its military spending.
That takes the percentage of the GDP devoted to defense to between 1.5 and 1.6%, still short of NATO’s required 2%.
Spain has said the earliest it could meet the 2% target is 2028.
