Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Spending targets, continued aid for Ukraine, and air defense will all be discussed when NATO defense ministers gather in Brussels on October 15 for their first official meeting since the military alliance’s June summit in The Hague.
There the alliance of 32 nations committed to spending 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on defense by 2035. And now they need to work out how to actually achieve that. An estimated 3.5 percent of that 5 percent must go on what is known as “hard” military outlays, mostly spending on weapons, vehicles, and ammunition.
At the June gathering in the Netherlands, the United States, which has strongly pushed for increased European defense spending, will be interested to see what progress has been made to meet those targets and to check that the spending splurge isn’t backloaded toward the end of the 10-year deadline.
European nations can include their military aid to Ukraine when calculating their defense spending targets, so the upcoming meeting — where Ukrainian Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal will participate — is expected to address the financing of the war-torn country.
