Lithuania will seek that NATO member countries agree at July’s summit in Vilnius to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defence, according to a presidential adviser.
“One of Lithuania’s objectives is that the NATO summit agree on and confirm the so-called Vilnius commitment on defence investment of at least 2%,” Kestutis Budrys, the chief national security adviser to President Gitanas Nauseda, said.
NATO’s eastern flank nations are committed to spending a higher share of their GDP on defence, but other countries fail to reach even the 2% threshold, according to Budrys.
His comment came after NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told the German news agency DPA that member countries would discuss their defence spending targets in the coming months.
“Some allies are strongly in favour of turning the current 2% target into a minimum,” he said.
Stoltenberg said he aimed to reach an agreement no later than NATO’s next summit in Vilnius on July 11-12.
At NATO’s gathering in Wales in 2014, the alliance’s member states agreed to aim for spending 2% of GDP on defence until 2024.
The Lithuanian government’s 2023 budget allows raising defence spending up to 3% of GDP through borrowed funds, provided that the overall general government deficit for the year does not exceed 4.9%.
The country’s defence spending was set at 2.52% of GDP in 2022. (LRT/Business World Magazine)
