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NATO analysis: Romania spent only 1.6% of GDP to Defense in 2023
Romania allocated 2.5% of GDP to Defense in 2023, but managed to spend only 1.6%, according to a NATO analysis quoted by TVR. With this threshold, Romania is just below the Alliance average of 1.73%.
In 2022, at the NATO summit in Madrid, Klaus Iohannis announced that Romania would increase its budget allocated to Defense to 2.5%: “We decided together, and this discussion started from CSAT, to allocate 2.5% of GDP to Defense. This will happen starting with the next budget, for the year 2023″.
“Alliance statistics, which are based on data collected until February 2024, show that the Army actually spent 1.6%, well below the minimum threshold required by NATO,” reports TVR citing a NATO report on allied spending.
Romania did not reach the mandatory target of 2% of GDP for defense until 2020, the NATO report also shows. From last year’s budget, more than 21% of the money went to endowment programs, slightly above the threshold required by the Alliance, but far from eastern countries like Poland, which had more than 53%. However, the Romanian Army had very high personnel expenses, almost 60% of the budget, according to TVR.