Stoltenberg: NATO member countries should spend more on defense

2023-03-22 08:44:48Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has called on member states to accelerate increases in defense spending, as new figures show that less than a quarter are meeting the alliance's target.

Stoltenberg said that Russia's attack on Ukraine last year showed that the world has become more insecure and that NATO allies must respond by setting and meeting more ambitious military goals, writes Euronews Serbia.

Seven of the alliance's 30 countries met the current target of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense in 2022, one less than in 2021, before the war in Ukraine, according to estimates in the annual report of NATO's secretary general. s, published today.

He stated that NATO's expectation was that two more members would meet the target, but their economies grew more than expected, so their spending as a share of GDP was reduced.

"There is no doubt that we need to do more and do it faster. The current pace, when it comes to increasing defense spending, is not high enough. My message to the allies is that we welcome what they have done, but they need to speed up, they need to be more divided in a more dangerous world," Stoltenberg told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

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