Stoltenberg demands more money for defense, Macedonia will reach NATO's goal this year

Stoltenberg EPA-EFE / STEPHANIE LECOCQ

The Alliance's Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, called yesterday for NATO member countries to speed up the increase in defense spending, noting that the organization's goal of 2 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is met by less than a quarter of the members. Macedonia, as the newest member of NATO, with a defense budget of 274 million euros, i.e. 1,85 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Macedonia is at the top of the list of NATO members, and the Government has announced that in 2024 the undertaken commitment will be realized defense allocation to reach 2 percent of GDP.

Stoltenberg said at yesterday's presentation of NATO's annual report for 2022 that the Russian attack on Ukraine showed that the world has become more unsafe and that NATO allies must respond by setting and meeting more ambitious military goals. Speaking about the defense budget, he said that only seven of the 30 Alliance members have met the target of allocating 2 percent of GDP, and two more countries are expected to meet the target. The seven countries that reached the goal, according to the report, are Greece, the United States, Lithuania, Poland, Great Britain, Estonia and Latvia, and the closest to the goal are Croatia and France, which now spend 1,9 percent of GDP each on defense.

– There is no doubt that we need to do more and do it faster. The current rate of increase in defense spending is not high enough. My message to the allies is that we welcome what they have done, but they have to speed up, they have to do more in this more dangerous world, Stoltenberg told the media at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

According to him, the current 2 percent of GDP should now be seen as a minimum, and the goal of the members is to move faster to reach higher levels.

As far as Macedonia's defense budget is concerned, Defense Minister Slavjanka Petrovska has already informed that with the budget for 2023, a high 33% of the defense section is set aside for equipment and modernization, which is 6% more compared to the same part of the budget. for 2022. These include the procurement of light armored vehicles, the anti-aircraft defense system, the procurement of information equipment, cyber defense equipment and other assets, and the main focus is equipping and improving the working conditions of the Light Infantry Battalion Group, that is, the Macedonian NATO unit.

The defense budget also provides 16 million euros for the reconstruction of facilities and infrastructure in the Ministry of Defense and the Army, which is 10 million more than last year.

If compared to the other members of the Alliance, according to the funds allocated for equipment, North Macedonia is in fifth place on the list, which is led by Luxembourg with a high 52,4 percent of the defense budget. Hungary, Greece and Norway follow, and at the bottom of the list is Slovenia, which allocated 17,9 percent of its budget for the purchase of equipment this year.

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