Defence expenditure at 2% of GDP cannot be the desired goal but only a necessary minimum, Defence Minister Jaroslav Naď declared after a session of the Government on Wednesday. “We are talking about this hike at the ministry and coalition level, but we are not quite yet at the Government level," stated Naď, who believes that the Slovak defence expenditure must reflect the developments in Ukraine. "We must compare ourselves to countries that also border Ukraine and there we can see that Romania and the Baltic states are increasing their defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, Poland even to 3%," pointed out Naď.
Slovakia, as a NATO member state, has committed to investing 2% of its GDP in defence, but has so far repeatedly failed to fulfil this commitment.
