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EU military spending second in world despite economic turmoil

Wednesday, 26 April 2023 3:02 AM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 26 April 2023 3:05 AM ]

Ramin Mazaheri
Press TV, Paris

A new report on global military spending found that the European Union’s expenditures soared 13 percent last year to reach 345 billion dollars. That means the bloc is the world’s 2nd-largest arms purchaser, sprinting far ahead of China but spending well less than half of the United States.

European military spending has now reached its highest level since the end of the Cold War 30 years ago.

The historic increase in European military spending comes despite once-in-a-generation inflation records, as their sanctions campaign against Russia keeps backfiring against the Western economy.

Brussels has repeatedly ramped up the conflict in Ukraine with once-unthinkable arms deliveries. European arms are already all over Africa and the Middle East due to Western support for failed interventions in places like Libya, Syria, across the Sahel and elsewhere.

Last year Finland, Qatar and Saudi Arabia recorded the biggest increases in military spending.

Globally, defense expenditures increased last year by four percent to a record high of 2.24 trillion dollars. That only barely exceeded the 1.98 trillion dollars budgeted this year for the United States Department of Defense.

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