NEWS

Greece tops NATO’s defence spending relative to its GDP by 3.82% in 2021, the alliance estimates, according to tables released before the upcoming summit in Brussels on Monday. Greece is followed by the USA with 3.52% and Croatia with 2.29%. The UK, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Lithuania, Romania and France also exceed the 2% threshold. Turkey is at 1.57% of its GDP.

In 2021, Greece will meet – for the first time after many years – the second criterion too, that of spending on armaments, recording 38.5% and being in the third highest position in this category of expenditure, after Croatia and Luxembourg. In 2020, the corresponding percentage was 8%. This criterion is not met by Germany, Belgium, Canada, Portugal and Slovenia only.

NATO says it collects defence spending data from the Allies and publishes it on a regular basis. Each Allied Ministry of Defence reports current and estimated future defence expenditure, according to an agreed definition of the latter. The amounts represent payments from a national government made or to be made during the financial year so as to meet the needs of its armed forces, those of the Allies or the Alliance.

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The figures and tables published by NATO also use economic and demographic information available from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Due to differences between these sources and national GDP projections, as well as the definition of NATO defence spending and national definitions, the figures presented in this report may differ significantly from those reported in the media, which are published by national authorities or given to national budgets.

Armaments costs include costs for significant armaments as well as for research and development dedicated to significant armaments. Staff costs include pensions paid to retirees. The deadline for receiving the information used in this report was June 2, 2021. The figures for 2020 and 2021 are estimates.

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