According to statements from NATO, the chairwoman of the Defense Committee in the Bundestag, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (FDP), is in favor of tightening the current two percent target for defense spending.
“NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s considerations of defining the two-percent target as a minimum requirement not only makes a lot of sense in the current world situation. Chancellor Olaf Scholz also emphasized in his turning point speech in February that we “We have to “overachieve” the percentage target permanently,” said Strack-Zimmermann of the German Press Agency in Berlin.
This demand corresponds to the ideas of the Free Democrats, said the FDP politician. However, it should be taken into account that fundamental investments in the infrastructure of the Bundeswehr, which also run outside the defense budget (“Individual Plan 14”), are also taken into account.
There is a risk of a new dispute in NATO over the level of defense spending by member states. According to Secretary General Stoltenberg, some of the Allies want to significantly tighten the current two percent target.
It envisages that by 2024 all NATO countries will approach the benchmark of spending at least two percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defense. “Some allies are determined to make the current target of 2 percent a minimum,” Stoltenberg said. As chairman of the North Atlantic Council, he will now lead the negotiations on the subject.
