NATO Alliance appreciates real increases in Slovakia’s defence spending

The NATO Alliance has expressed its appreciation for real increases in Slovakia’s defence spending. This year Slovakia will spend 1.7% of GDP on defence and has set out to meet the 2% NATO benchmark for investment in defence already in 2022, i.e. two years earlier than envisaged in the 2016 NATO Wales Summit commitments.
 

Speaking after today’s meeting of NATO Defence Ministers in Brussels, SVK Defence Minister Peter Gajdoš said: “NATO Allies appreciate that we want to invest 1.7% of GDP in defence this year and assign over 40% of that for modernization.” He underlined that these are not just plans but real steps. He continued: “And our ambition is to bring our defence spending up to 1.9% of GDP on defence in 2021 and meet the requested benchmark of spending 2% on defence already in 2022.”
 

As well as addressing burden sharing, today NATO Defence Ministers dedicated a session to discussing defence capabilities development. They agreed that unity of effort is needed in the field of defence planning and capabilities development, depending on real threats and individual capacities and possibilities of NATO member states.