The Senate restored this Wednesday the objective of bringing the participation of the Armies budget to 2% of GDP as of 2025, while the Government prefers “for honesty”, to provide a range “between 2025 and 2027”. In its initial version, the military programming bill, which must allocate 413.3 billion euros in seven years (2024-2030) to the budget of the Armed Forces, set the goal of reaching 2% of GDP in 2025.
But during the discussion in the National Assembly, the Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu, wanted to make the schedule more flexible, to take into account the framework of the stability program, presented at the end of April by the government. This program is based in particular on a return to the European budgetary pegs in 2027.
“We cannot allow ourselves words on this matter there,” warned the minister, for whom “it is about the credibility of the text that will come out of the Senate.” “The credibility of France, is it based on a false thing that does good or on a real thing that corresponds to the truth?” He questioned.
“Political Exhibition”
“The government does not propose to reverse course in 2027 (…) a priori it happens in 2025, except that by then there will be no new LPM, and for this reason I believe in credibility and responsibility that it is better to write in the law that ‘I don’t know what they will be macroeconomic projections’ and that therefore, by definition, 2% of GDP will fall between 25 and 27”, he developed. “Let’s not challenge the intentions in the Senate”, requested the president of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Christian Cambon (LR).
“Everyone knows that economic forecasts are an uncertain field and quite capricious, what we retain is the political display,” he argued. “Political deployment has immediate consequences, both against our allies and against our adversaries,” he added. This spending target of 2% of GDP is a criterion set by NATO and its members, and to which Washington is particularly attached.
Source: BFM TV
