More than 20 member countries in Nato are expected to reach the alliance's two per cent target by 2024, announces Nato's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
The defence alliance's goal is for each country to allocate at least two per cent of its GDP to its defence, which is far from what all members have chosen to do so far.
In 2021, only six countries met the target, and low defence spending has previously been met with criticism from, among others, the USA's former President Donald Trump – who threatened not to defend countries that fail to reach the two per cent target.
Jens Stoltenberg stated, in connection with a meeting with the USA's President Joe Biden, that a total of 23 countries are expected to reach the target by 2024.
As Sweden became a member of the alliance earlier this year, there are now 32 Nato countries.
Never before will so many countries have reached the target, if the calculations for 2024 hold.
Here are the Nato countries' defence expenditures for 2024, as a percentage of their GDP:
Poland: 4.12
Estonia: 3.43
USA: 3.38
Latvia: 3.15
Greece: 3.08
Lithuania: 2.85
Finland: 2.41
Denmark: 2.37
United Kingdom: 2.33
Romania: 2.25
North Macedonia: 2.22
Norway: 2.20
Bulgaria: 2.18
Sweden: 2.14
Germany: 2.12
Hungary: 2.11
Czech Republic: 2.10
Turkey: 2.09
France: 2.06
Netherlands: 2.05
Albania: 2.03
Montenegro: 2.02
Slovakia: 2.00
Croatia: 1.81
Portugal: 1.55
Italy: 1.49
Canada: 1.37
Belgium: 1.30
Luxembourg: 1.29
Slovenia: 1.29
Spain: 1.28
Note: Member number 32, Iceland, has no defence of its own.
Source: Nato