The European Defence Agency (EDA) says, in a report published on Monday 16 December, that while Member States’ defence spending is increasing, it is insufficient in key areas.
According to the report, 27 Member States (Denmark is not part of the agency) spent €223.4 billion in 2018 on defence, an increase of 3% compared to 2017. This is the fifth consecutive year of increase and Member States have almost returned to the level they had before the financial crisis in 2007 (225 billion). This expenditure represents 1.4% of GDP and 3.1% of total public expenditure.
However, despite the increase in defence spending, spending on collective benchmarks has not kept pace, the EDA regrets.
Thus, investments (procurement of new equipment and R&D) represent only 19.9% of defence spending (44.5 billion in 2018) against a collective benchmark of 20%. Fourteen Member States - which are not named - met this benchmark and allocated at least 20% of their defence budget to investment in 2018, compared to seven States in 2014. Only six States spend less than 10% of their defence budget on investments.
Expenditure on European Collaborative Defence Equipment Procurement is also below the benchmark of 35%, with only 17.8% of Total Defence Equipment Procurement (€6.4 billion).
2.1 billion euros was spent on Defence Research and Technology, representing 0.9% of total defence spending against a collective benchmark of 2%. Together, eight Member States account for 96% of total defence research and technology expenditure.
Finally, European Collaborative Defence R&T accounted for 7.3% of Total Defence R&T - or 153 billion euros - against a collective benchmark of 20%.
See the report: http://bit.ly/2RXhzDn (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)