Spain will be exempt from NATO’s new 5% of GDP spending target, the country’s centre-left Prime Minister has announced. NATO allies agreed to the dramatic increase in spending on Sunday, but Pedro Sánchez said Spain has reached a deal with the alliance to be excluded from the latest goal.
In a televised address, Mr Sánchez said Spain will not be hitting 5% but Madrid’s “participation, weight and legitimacy in NATO remain intact”. The move risks irking Donald Trump who has been pushing allies to spend more, even saying he wouldn’t defend those not paying enough for their own defence. On Friday, the US President said “very low payer” Spain — the eurozone’s fourth-largest economy — “has to pay what everybody else has to pay”.
NATO estimates placed Spain as the lowest spender in the 32-nation military alliance last year, with a defence expenditure of 1.28% — below the previous 2% target.
In April, Mr Sánchez said Spain would raise its defence spending to 2% this year.
He claims Spain will be able to keep its commitments to NATO by spending 2.1%.
Mr Sánchez said in letters exchanged with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Sunday, Spain was granted the exemption and the language around the 5% spending target was made to no longer include “all allies”.
He previously told Mr Rutte that Spain could not commit to the increased spending goal which he described on Sunday as “incompatible with our worldview”.
It comes just days before a NATO summit in The Hague, which Mr Trump is set to attend.
NATO allies will be expected to achieve the 5% spending figure by 2035.
The new target will be divided into 3.5% being spent on core defence and 1.5% on defence-related investments, such as cyber security.
The UK plans to spend 2.5% of its GDP on defence by 2027, but critics have argued this is not enough.
