The Czech Republic is ready for an increase in defence spending to 5% of gross domestic product (GDP), Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS) told reporters after a government meeting today.
He said he expected the increase to be adopted at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) summit in the Hague today. The mandate of the Czech delegation approved by the government was that it could agree to the rise, Fiala said. Talks between the presidents and prime ministers of NATO member states on this subject began in the Hague this morning.
The summit is expected to agree to increase NATO countries’ defence spending commitments up to 5% of GDP. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has proposed raising the defence spending target so that 3.5% should be allocated to the military and 1.5% to broader security-related spending, such as infrastructure, cybersecurity, or building medical facilities.
Fiala said he considered the 3.5%-1.5% split to be important. “What used to be 2% of defence spending and what was the commitment, that is being increased to 3.5%,” he noted, adding that the Czech Republic is ready for such an increase.
Fiala noted that the Czech government had decided in March to gradually raise defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2030, or by 0.2% annually.
“If we project this further into the following years, it should not be problematic for us to reach that 3.5% limit by 2032 or 2035, depending on how it will be set in the end,” he added.
