Lithuania’s real national defence funding is projected to reach 2.63% of GDP next year, Laurynas Kasciunas, chairman of the parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defence (NSGK), has said.
In his words, this indicator is calculated by adding the funds allocated for national defence in the state budget, the so-called mobility package and the costs of building an access road to the Rudninkai training area.
NSGK is set to discuss next year’s national defence funding. If the current plan is approved, Lithuania will be among the top five NATO countries in terms of GDP share spent on defence, according to Kasciunas.
“We will be in the top three or top five of NATO countries in terms of GDP,” he said.
Due to Lithuania’s estimated economic growth, an additional 124 million euros will be allocated to national defence next year to maintain the existing defence funding of 2.52%. The total funding is expected to exceed 1.77 billion euros.
Lithuania plans to spend 55.7 million euros on the mobility package, i.e. the reception of the German brigade, and also allocate 23 million euros to build an access road to the Rudninkai training area.
“Once we added it all together, we would have an additional 0.113% of GDP. So, we can say that we would allocate a total of 2.63% of GDP to defence,” Kasciunas said. (LRT/Business World Magazine)