Supporting Ukraine and strengthening NATO cohesion are among the Portuguese government’s priorities for the summit in Lithuania, with the executive branch also calling on allies to reflect on the southern flank.
In a written response to the Lusa bureau regarding the NATO summit, which will take place this week in Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital, the Ministry of National Defense pointed out that Portugal’s main aim at this meeting is to contribute to strengthening Alliance cohesion, “which immediately passes as a demonstration of unequivocal solidarity” with the eastern flank allies, “who feel more directly the effects of the barbaric Russian aggression against Ukraine”.
The Vilnius summit on Tuesday and Wednesday is expected to send “an unequivocal signal of strong support for Ukraine”.
“In addition to strengthening current support, namely through the Comprehensive Assistance Package (CAP), the establishment and holding of the inaugural meeting in Vilnius of the NATO-Ukraine Council will be an important signal that the broad consensus among the Allies confirms that Ukraine’s place is one of the Euro-Atlantic community,” the government stressed.
In addition to the concerns about Ukraine, the government wants to make it clear to allies that “despite the understandable priority” currently given to the eastern flank, it is important to include the southern flank – which also includes the concerns on the African continent, namely in the Sahel region – in line with the 360-degree approach to security reflected in NATO’s current Strategic Concept resulting from the Madrid Summit.
“In this sense, we hope to see a formalized collective recognition of the importance these issues deserve, with the explicit indication that until the 2024 summit in Washington [Estados Unidos da América]the Alliance will reflect on its initiatives and policies with our partners in the South and their respective education,” the ministry added.
Another of Portugal’s priorities is to further deepen cooperation between NATO and the European Union, “from the point of view of complementarity and avoidance of duplication, particularly in areas such as resilience, climate change and critical underwater infrastructure, among others”.
In response, the Ministry led by Helena Carreiras indicated that Portugal has increased its defense investment over the past nine years, despite still being far from the 2% of GDP in military expenditures requested by the Alliance and that this year for the first time, will reach “the target of 20% investment in capabilities”.
“Portugal is also spending 3,921 million euros on defense this year, the highest amount since 2014,” the guardian said.
The government wants to meet the target of 2% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in military spending by 2030 and the forecast for this year is 1.66%.
On Friday, however, the Alliance estimated that Portugal will invest 1.48% of GDP in defense this year, which is lower than the government’s forecast, which is nonetheless the largest investment since 2014.
When asked about this data, the Ministry of Defense replied that Portugal will maintain the 2% target until the end of the decade.
“As a target corresponding to a percentage of GDP, it is important to bear in mind that it is also subject to the most pronounced cyclical swings in this indicator. The last three years have been paradigmatic in this regard: with a decline of more than 8% of GDP in 2020, the pandemic made it easier to meet the targets. Strong growth in 2021 (+5.5%) and 2022 (+6.7%) was a factor that made it difficult made to achieve these objectives, therefore, as we indicated in Madrid, this objective will have to be continuously evaluated so that we can achieve the target that we have set for ourselves (2%) by the date we have set for ourselves (until the end of the decade)”, the response states.
The executive adds that the percentage indicated in the NATO report “exactly reflects the impact of strong and rapid GDP growth, but does not affect the upward trajectory of defense investment”.
According to the ministry, the national contribution to NATO “should be measured not only in terms of financial measures”, but also “the country’s contribution to operations and missions of the Alliance or other international organizations and coalitions”.
Source: DN
