Politics Italy wants to meet NATO's two percent target
Italy wants to meet the two percent target for defense spending set by NATO member states more than ten years ago by 2025. This was announced by Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti before parliament in Rome.
17.04.2025, 15:07
SDA
The future of the Western defense alliance is also one of the topics of a meeting between Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and US President Donald Trump this Thursday in Washington.
Giorgetti said in a hearing that, according to current calculations, Italy will spend two percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) this year on "defense spending and, more generally, on the country's security". The founding member of NATO is one of the countries that is behind schedule with the implementation of the mark agreed in 2014. According to NATO estimates, Italy's defense spending in 2024 was 1.49 percent.
At the same time, the finance minister of the coalition of three right-wing and conservative parties promised: "We are aware of the need to increase this spending in the coming years, also in view of the current tensions." Trump is now calling on the European NATO partners to raise the mark to five percent of GDP.
