Only seven of the thirty members of the NATO military alliance met the 2 per cent of GDP military spending minimum of the alliance in 2022 according to official figures.
NATO head Jens Stoltenberg commented on the annual report, calling for NATO members to increase their military spending to the agreed-upon targets as fewer countries met the pending goals in 2022 than in 2021.
“…because GDP has increased more than expected for a couple of allies, two allies that we expected to be at 2% per cent are now slightly below 2 per cent,” Stoltenberg told a news conference in Brussels, the newspaper Ekathimerini reports.
According to the annual report, only Greece, the United States, Poland, the United Kingdom, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania met the two per cent of GDP spending goal.
“We need to do more and we need to do it faster,” Stolenburg said and added, “Today’s world is as dangerous as at any time since the Second World War. The years to come will be challenging and NATO must continue to rise to the challenge.”
The NATO head also spoke of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine saying, “Even if the war in Ukraine ended tomorrow, the security environment has changed for the long term.”
Stoltenberg added that NATO was “in the process of agreeing to new capability targets for the production of battle-decisive ammunition and engaging with industry to ramp up production — to support Ukraine against Russia’s aggression and for our own defence.”
NATO members have sent a vast amount of military support to Ukraine since the start of the war last year and Stoltenberg admitted in February that Ukraine was using up ammunition faster than NATO could provide it.
Just weeks later, German Minister of Defence Boris Pistorius admitted that the German armed forces were in such a state that they would be unable to repel a serious offensive. “We have no armed forces that are capable of defence, i.e. capable of defending against an offensive brutally conducted war of aggression,” he said.
Finland and Sweden have also yet to be approved to join NATO, largely due to concerns expressed by Turkey, but Stoltenberg said in his media conference this week that it was important that both countries join the alliance quickly.
Earlier this month Hungary stated it supported Swedish membership in the alliance but Turkey has yet to give approval, indicating earlier this month that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan still had reservations over Swedish membership.
Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com.
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