5% Nato spending

5% Nato spending
For now, there is only a European army if images are generated by AI

LinkedIn blog post, 25/06/2025, by Sven Franck (en français , in Deutsch)

TL;DR - It's Nato summit and Mark Rutte already spoiled the poetic message: We will be spending 5% of GDP on defense 🪖. That's significantly more than the 2% members committed to grow their spending until 2024 and even more than the current 1.3% of GDP. Let's also not forget that overall government expenditures in the EU are 49.3% of GDP. 5% of 49.3% means that Mark Rutte signed everyone up to spend 10% of your country's budget on defense.

Who is calling the shots?

Yes, Mark Rutte is Nato chief, but there is no budgetary chain-of-command where he can just set expenditure targets ex ante. If the Commission President rightfully gets flak for deciding things without the backing of member states, Mark Rutte should get called out for doing the same. But "Nato Is Not EU" and considering the current US foreign policy, can we trust the US fulfilling its commitments while its president is rambling about Greenland? Sure we can.

The reality on the ground also has many member states scrambling to cut costs to meet the 3% deficit hurdle while on the horizon, the upcoming Multi-annual Financial Framework aka "EU budget" is already rumbling in the skies. Coughing up this many billions from existing budgets will mean cutting other expenses from pensions to education. Or paneuropean borrowing, which requires unanimity and Germany's chancellor blinking a second time after lifting the foot from its national debt brake. Something's gotta give.

5% times 0 coordination still equals 0

Let's be clear: the European Union needs to be able to defend itself. And even clearer: we are nowhere near. If EU Nato members were serious, they would look into European resiliency - from establishing a transnational chain of command to joint procurement from a European military-industrial complex to researching together and building European military capacities.

The reality will likely be different: NATO's "Supreme Allied Commander Europe" will continue to be American. Member states will continue to be unwilling or unable to pool resources and purchase US equipment. Every country will insist on subsidising its national champions. We may even see the car industry saved (think Volkswagen with machine gun racks). Every member state keeps its defence bureaucracy and processes with the vector sum of doubling or tripling spending to go in 27 different directions remaining the same.

We probably can get a European army and deterrence for 2% of GDP. If it was a joint effort. It won't happen with national parties and a Commission under their control. How else? #jumpstartEU.