The leader of the Belgian French right, of what the party is one of the pillars of the government, “hysterical” judges who want to bring the defense budgets of the NATO countries to 5% of GDP, as Washington requires.
“It is collective hysteria to consider that it is necessary to do 5%,” said Georges-Louis Bouchez, president of the Reforma Movement (Mr., Liberal), on Saturday in an interview with the newspaper Le Soir.
The government led by Wever Flamenco Bart curator is ready for “all efforts to reach 2% at the military level” (against 1.3% currently), they add.
But going further will require integrating “expenses such as the fight against drug trafficking, the strengthening of our police, our justice” or “cyber security investments”. “Reaching 5% in five years, because Belgium is impossible, or we have to stop all our other policies,” he says.
“Risk close to zero”
“Let’s be clear, the risk that there are Russian tanks one day in the great place in Brussels, is close to zero,” Georges-Louis Bouchez also argues.
In Belgium, a country governed by coalitions, an agreement is necessary between all the parties involved in the Federal (five currently), before defending a common position in foreign policy in an international enclosure.
At this stage, “there is no agreement” on the level of increase in military spending, according to the president of Mr., while the question will be the point without a fast of the NATO summit convened in ten days in The Hague.
The Secretary General of the Mark Rutte Alliance has proposed a 5% global figure of the gross domestic product of each member country, but in the form of an addition of two types of expenses. It would be a matter of bringing the level of military spending Sensu to 3.5% of GDP by 2032, and at the same time 1.5% of the GDP of all those who are linked to security in the broad sense, such as border protection, military mobility or cybersecurity.
For their part, the United States of Donald Trump, to judge that the countries of Canada and Europe do not spend enough, require that a 5% commitment officially formalizes at the NATO summit on June 24 and 25. Washington says that the 32 member countries are “about a consensus” in this figure.
Source: BFM TV
