By Maria Martinez
BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany met the NATO alliance’s target to spend 2% of its gross domestic product on defence in 2024, a government spokesperson said on Monday, as the country weighs the need to further boost longer-term military funding commitments.
Reuters earlier cited finance ministry sources as also saying Germany met the NATO target last year.
Germany under Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government has ramped up military spending since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, both to supply weapons aid to Kyiv and revamp its own armed forces. But it has grappled with budgetary constraints, clouding the prospect of future spending.
Details on all the expenses that accounted towards the NATO goal will be published in February, the finance ministry sources added.
Days after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Scholz announced a “Zeitenwende” – German for a historic turning point – with a 100 billion euro special fund to modernise the military.
In 2028, that special fund is due to run out and a total of 80 billion euros will be needed to comply with the NATO alliance’s target of spending 2% of GDP on defence – a huge leap from the 2025 draft budget, which proposed regular defence spending of 53 billion euros.
U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has said members of the NATO military alliance should even spend 5% of GDP on defence – a huge increase from the current goal and a level that no NATO country, including the United States, currently reaches.
(Reporting by Maria Martinez; editing by Matthias Williams and Ludwig Burger)
