NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has welcomed an unprecedented rise in NATO defence spending across European allies and Canada.
Commenting on the latest NATO defence spending figures, released on 14 February 2024 in advance of a meeting in Brussels of NATO defence ministers, Stoltenberg announced that European Allies and Canada have added more than USD 600 billion (EUR 559 billion) in defence spending since the NATO Defence Investment Pledge was made in 2014, which targeted a 2%-of-GDP level of defence spending among NATO nations.
“Last year saw an unprecedented rise of 11% across European Allies and Canada,” Stoltenberg said on 14 February. “This year I expect 18 allies to spend 2% of their GDP on defence. That is another record number, and a six-fold increase from 2014, when only three allies met the target.
“In 2024 NATO allies in Europe will invest a combined total of USD 380 billion in defence. For the first time, this amounts to 2% of their combined GDP,” Stoltenberg added. “We are making real progress: European Allies are spending more. However, some Allies still have a ways to go because we agreed at the Vilnius Summit [in July 2023] that all allies should invest 2%, and that 2% is a minimum.”
NATO Allies in Europe invested 1.47% of their collective GDP in defence in 2014. The pledge to go to 2% of GDP was triggered by Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, while the latest defence spending increases were prompted by Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
