by alessio dell’anna  & Alice Taidi, Maria Munoz Morillo
It’s published •update
NATO leaders are preparing to agree to historic military spending goals to convene in the Hague city, a Dutch city, about what is considered the most important gathering since the foundations of the Alliance.
Reaching a 5% GDP spending target is a major leap for most NATO members.
According to estimates from the Atlantic Council, the only exceptions are Poland (4.12%), Estonia (3.43%), the US (3.38%), Latvia (3.15%) and Greece (3.08%).
What is in that 5% and what is the controversial bit?
The biggest chunks are 3.5% GDP of “core defense spending”, including tanks, jets, drones, soldiers, plenty of new artillery ammunition, and of course troops.
However, the remaining 1.5% opens up even more questions.
NATO called it “defense and security-related investments.”
In other words, civilians and IT infrastructure designed to boost and support military operations, including bridges, roads, ports, storage, and cybersecurity and energy pipeline protection.
However, experts argue that this part of the budget is vague and open to state interpretations.
“The diverse tradition of citizen preparation across member states has led to risks and hindering cooperation in creative accounting and opportunistic prioritization,” said Germany’s Bertelsmann Stifeng think tank.
“If 1.5% of targets fail to provide measurable improvements in European resilience, it could backfire and strain transatlantic trust.”
“NATO must establish a structured capacity planning process that reflects the defense capacity planning process, with a clear alliance-wide purpose.”
Are spending targets binding?
The devil is certainly in detail.
A NATO letter sent to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Sunday appears to suggest that the 5% target may not be binding.
Spain says that “there is the flexibility to determine your own path to reach the capacity goals set by NATO.”
Additionally, some allies can be considered as permission to assign less than 5% if they can prove they meet their ability goals (the list remains classified).
NATO’s sense of security followed Spanish concerns about “irrational” spending targets.
“Assigning 5% of GDP to defense would slow economic growth through increased debt,” PM said.
The country currently spends around 1.28% of its GDP on defense, one of the lowest fees in the alliance.
The new NATO agreement calls for the country to raise spending to 5% of GDP by 2035, and will review allies’ “expenditure trajectories” that will take place along the way in 2029.
