The EU and NATO dome, plus eight heads of government, including Pedro Sánchez, meet on Monday in Paris to treat the future of security in Europe after the Munich security conference of this weekend. The appointment takes place after the approach between the president of the United States, Donald Trump, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
Trump wants to negotiate peace in Ukraine directly with Putin and relegates Europe to the background in the resolution of the conflict. The Tensions between the United States and European countries marked the Munich Security Conference on the increase in defense spending and this Monday in Paris will address the matter again.
The Spanish Executive will explain before their counterparts the road map to fulfill its commitment to NATO to invest 2% of GDP in defense, which Today only 23 of their 32 members. At the 2022 summit in Madrid, the investment of 2% – which was agreed in Wales in 2014 – went from being a recommendation to becoming a commitment, and Spain is still far from reaching that percentage.
Currently, our country allocates 1.28% of GDP A defensewhich is equivalent to about 15,958 million euros in 2024. This figure is below the average of other member countries, some of which already exceed the threshold agreed by NATO.
Spain’s plan to increase its defense spending
With an eye on the next NATO summit in The Hague (Netherlands) that will be held from June 24 to 26, 2025 and where the leaders of the Atlantic Alliance will set new defense spending objectivesSpain already prepares its plan to progressively increase its investment in the next five years.
To fulfill your commitment to reach 2% of GDP In defense spending, the government has established A roadmap that will raise the expense of this expense of 15,958 million euros to 36,560 million euros in 2029. This figure doubles the amount for the armed forces and the improvement of the defense infrastructure.
The increase responds to the purpose of strengthening the defensive capacity of our country, but also to NATO pressure to ensure that all its members fulfill their responsibilities investment
The breakdown of the investment prepared by the fixed executive – as publishes’ El País’- an expense of 21,198 million euros in 2025 (1.32% of GDP). Next year this amount would rise to 24,685 million (1.49%); in 2027, at 28,403 million (1.66%); In 2028 it would exceed the threshold of 30,000 million, reaching 32,364 (1.83%); And in 2029, the investment would already be at 36,560 million euros, finally reaching 2% of GDP.
Von der Leyen proposes to freeze fiscal rules for investments in defense
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, proposed last Friday freeze EU fiscal rules For defense investments, as already done in 2020 to facilitate measures to combat the propagation of the COVID-19 pandemic, by activating the exhaust clause collected by community regulations before exceptional cases.
“I think we are now in another period of crisis that justifies a similar approach. That is why I can announce that I propose to activate the exhaust clause for investments in defense,” said German politics during his speech at the Munich security conference ( Germany).
In this sense, the president of the Community Executive recalled that the twenty -seven are currently spending in defense around 2% of GDP, going from a little more than 200,000 million euros before the war to more than 320,000 million in 2024a figure that now wants to increase “considerably.”
As explained von der Leyen, “this will allow member states substantially increase your defense expensesto “controlled and conditioned”, for which it will propose a broader package of “custom tools” to address the specific situation of each of the capitals.
