Brits face £16bn a yr tax hike to satisfy 3% NATO goal | UK | News | EUROtoday

European NATO members are mulling over growing their spending goal from two to 3 p.c of their GDP, the Financial Times reviews. Some commentators have argued the spending goal might must go as much as 4 p.c to be able to meet threats posed following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine almost three years in the past.

The UK at the moment spends 2.3 p.c of its price range on defence and though the federal government has pledged to lift this to 2.5 p.c, it has not offered a timeline of when it’ll accomplish that.

The UK’s armed forces have endured quite a few rounds of cuts lately.

Between 2009/10 and 2016/17, real-terms defence spending fell by 22 precent and the British Army now has simply 76,950 personnel as of 2023. This is down from 109,600 personnel in 2000.

If defence spending is raised to 3 p.c of GDP it might want to up the £54bn it spent final yr, which solely amounted to 2.3 per cent of GDP, in accordance with parliament.

Increasing it to 3 p.c would imply a complete of £70bn was wanted, so at the very least one other £16.5bn.

The Royal United Services Insitute (Rusi) predicted it could possibly be as a lot as £20bn. Earlier this yr, Rusi identified the MoD faces a big funding hole within the present monetary yr and that in December 2023, the National Audit Office recognized a deficit within the gear plan of £3n for 2024/25 and an extra deficit of £3.9bn in 2025/26.

It stated the British Ministry of Defence can even want to seek out an additional £1bn annually to fund the above-budget prices of the 2023 and 2024 pay settlements for the armed forces.

This comes as Mark Rutte, the alliance’s secretary normal, instructed the BBC that US president-elect Donald Trump was “right” in pushing for extra defence spending. Mr Trump has, previously, complained about European NATO members not paying their justifiable share into the alliance.

Mr Rutte stated: “My plea here is, if you have children, grandchildren, if you think our way of life should be preserved: democracy, our values, then we have to prioritise defence.”

Asked whether or not he was fearful president-elect Trump may flip his again on the worldwide alliance if Europe doesn’t up its defence spending, Mr Rutte stated: “We will spend more”.

He later added: “I don’t want to spend more because of Donald Trump. He’s right that we have to spend more absolutely, he was right, he’s still right.”