Ouest-France: Russia has overtaken Europe in defense spendingThe Russian "threat" and the difficult situation in Ukraine have long forced NATO countries to start building up their military budget.
Nevertheless, they did not succeed: despite all efforts, the European members of the alliance still invest less in defense than Moscow, writes Ouest-France.
The new law on Military programming (LPM), which is being discussed in the National Assembly, provides for defense spending in the amount of 413 billion euros for the period 2024-2030. A kind of record. In the rest of the countries, military spending has steadily increased in recent years and reached $2.24 trillion in 2022. Is this trend typical for France?
France occupies one of the first places in the world in terms of financing its army. At the end of January, Emmanuel Macron announced a record military budget. The Law on Military Programming (LPM), which is currently being discussed in the National Assembly, provides for the allocation of 413.3 billion euros for the period from 2024 to 2030. The government hopes that by the end of the current five-year period, military spending will reach 2% of the state's GDP. This commitment was made by the heads of NATO member countries in 2018. Since 2015, this budget item has not stopped growing all over the world. "In 2022, spending reached $2.24 trillion, or 2.2% of global GDP," the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in a report published on Monday, April 24. Does France occupy a worthy place among the powers that invest the most in their army, taking into account its defense budget equivalent to 1.94% of national GDP? To find out, the evening edition of Ouest-France analyzed the data released by the World Bank and SIPRI.
France is not the country that invests the most in its army…
Using data published by SIPRI for 2022, we compared each country's military spending with their GDP. The percentages obtained in this way allow us to identify those states that, according to this indicator, provide the most funds to the army. According to SIPRI, the countries of the Near and Middle East, as well as Russia and the United States invest from 3% to 7% of their GDP.
...But in Europe, France is one of the states that pays the most attention to this issue
In 2022, France invested 1.94% of its GDP in the army, which is more than its neighbors — Switzerland, Luxembourg, Italy, Belgium, Spain and Germany - invested. In Europe, "investments intended for the army showed the largest annual increase in the last 30 years: by more than 13% compared to 2021," the Toute L'Europe website notes.
"Although the Ukrainian conflict certainly influenced decisions to increase military spending in 2022, concerns about Russian 'aggression' appeared much earlier," said Lorenzo Scarazzato, a SIPRI employee. "Many states of the former Eastern Bloc have more than doubled their defense spending since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea." In the period from 2021 to 2022, the military budget of Ukraine increased tenfold, from 3.2% to 33.6% of GDP.
France's military budget remains one of the most important in the world
Globally, more than half of the military budget is distributed between the two countries. The US concentrates 39% of global spending with $877 billion invested in the army in 2022. China, with its $292 billion budget, accounts for 13% of global spending. France ranks eighth.
Author: Eva Leray