17/04/2025 (Agence Europe) – On Thursday 17 April, Italy’s Minister for the Economy, Giancarlo Giorgetti, announced that his country would have to spend 2% of its GDP on defence this year. “The survey work carried out on defence spending and, more generally, on the country’s security, carried out with particular care according to NATO methodology, leads us to believe that we will already be able to achieve this year the target of 2% of GDP planned for in 2014” he declared at a joint hearing of the House of Representatives and Senate Budget Committees. And he went on to add: “We are fully aware, particularly in view of the current tensions, of the need to increase this spending in the years ahead.” In 2014, the Allies pledged to increase their defence spending to 2% of GDP by 2024. At the summit in The Hague at the end of June, they are expected to decide to increase this percentage even further. (CG)