Five NATO states spend over 3% of GDP on defence – infographic

Five NATO member states will spend over 3% of their GDP on defence in 2024, while a guideline of expenditures is 2% of GDP.

According to NATO’s report on defence expenditures, Poland takes the first place in terms of the scale of spending relative to the size of economy (4.12% of GDP), Estonia – the second place (3.43%), next spots are taken by the US (3.38%), Latvia (3.15%) and Greece (3.08%).

Lithuania, Finland, Denmark, the UK and Romania are in the top ten (in descending order).

The expenditures of many countries have doubled or even increased by more than three times compared with 2014.

Germany is expected to reach the index of 2% and even exceed it for the first time since 2014.

The top five countries with the smallest expenditures relative to the economy are Italy, Canada, Belgium, Luxembourg (even though it is among the countries which have radically increased their expenditures compared with 2014), Slovenia, and, on the last spot, Spain.

Earlier Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General, stated that over 20 NATO allies will reach or even exceed the guideline index this year.

Andrzej Duda, President of Poland, seeks to increase the target index to 3% from the GDP and plans to launch a promotion campaign.