NATO Sets 5% Defence Target

When all 32 NATO allies sign the same promise, the hard part is not the signature. It is the definition. At the alliance summit in Ankara, members pledged to spend 5% of GDP on defence by 2035 (NATO, Euronews). The declaration was unanimous. What counts towards the 5% was left much less tidy.

Why the Number Exists

The target is a response to a shift in American priorities. Before the summit, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte set out the problem in plain terms: the United States is now planning for conflicts beyond Europe, and has reduced its contribution to NATO's Force Model, the alliance tool that matches available forces to likely threats. European governments are being told to pay for capabilities they had long expected Washington to carry.

The 5% figure turns that strategic gap into a budget line. The formula agreed at The Hague summit in 2025 divides the target into 3.5% for core military spending and 1.5% for wider defence and security. Ankara added another layer: national plans that NATO can inspect, with a review due in 2029. What it did not add was any clear consequence for a government that falls short.

For Malta, which is not a NATO member but sits inside the EU security debate, the distinction matters. Higher European defence spending will still shape EU budgets, industrial policy, maritime security and the politics around neutrality. Decisions taken in NATO rooms have a habit of turning up later in EU funding arguments.

Three Countries, Three Definitions

Lithuania shows what the target looks like when the threat is treated as immediate. President Gitanas Nausėda arrived in Ankara with Lithuania already spending 5.38% of GDP on defence and pressing for a firm US commitment to Article 5, the clause under which an attack on one ally is treated as an attack on all. His government secured one practical change: Baltic air policing will be reclassified as an air-defence mission. Air policing monitors and intercepts. Air defence is built to defeat an attack.

Spain is the counter-example. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez openly rejected the 5% target, arguing that NATO should judge countries by what they can actually deploy, not by a percentage of GDP. His government accused Rutte of trying to appease Trump and insisted Spain's operational contribution was enough. That gives other governments with tight budgets a usable formula: sign the text now, dispute the accounting later.

Germany sits in the middle. Chancellor Friedrich Merz promised to reach 3.5% core defence spending by 2029. Berlin reported record defence spending of €124.7 billion, equal to 2.69% of GDP, a steep rise that still leaves Germany well below the core target. German media treated Ankara both as a real reassurance exercise and as an attempt to manage Trump. The Bundeswehr's equipment gaps and recruitment problems show why money voted in parliament does not immediately become usable force.

A Promise Without Penalties

France points to the weakness behind the spending pledge. Le Monde reported that European armies are getting stronger, but in scattered and poorly coordinated ways. Le Figaro was sharper: Europe wants predictability from Washington, and Washington is not prepared to give it. Spending more through NATO does not, by itself, make Europe less dependent on the United States.

Article 5 is also less automatic than political speeches suggest. The Washington Treaty says each ally will take "such action as it deems necessary", leaving the form and scale of any response to national governments. Ankara created no enforcement mechanism for the 5% target and no penalties for missing the national plans. Rutte called it a "delivery summit". By 2029, NATO will find out whether its members bought capability or merely bought time.