21 June 2025
NATO member states will meet in The Hague next week and are expected to agree to significantly boost military expenditure, but Madrid is reluctant, according to reports.
Spain wants an exemption from NATO's likely future military spending goal of 5% of GDP, the country's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said ahead of the summit, which most commentators expect to be all about placating Donald Trump.
"Spain will continue to fulfil its duty in the years and decades ahead and will continue to actively contribute to the European security architecture. However, Spain cannot commit to a specific spending target in terms of GDP at this summit", Sánchez told NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in a letter first reported by El País.
“For Spain, committing to a 5% target would not only be unreasonable, but also counterproductive, as it would move Spain away from optimal spending and it would hinder the EU’s ongoing efforts to strengthen its security and defence ecosystem,” Sánchez wrote in the letter. Spain has the lowest military spending of any NATO member state, allocating 1.3% of its GDP to defence in 2024. Sánchez asked for “a more flexible formula” in relation to a new spending target — that either made it optional or left Spain out from its application.
The US president wants NATO members to spend 5% of their GDP on the military, a big increase from the current 2% target. In April, Sánchez said the government would raise military spending by 10.5 billion euros ($12 billion) in 2025 to reach the 2% target.
To placate Trump, the NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has proposed that the 5% should include 3.5% of GDP on purely military expenditures and 1.5% for defence-related items such as military mobility and cybersecurity. Politically, the increased spending target could strengthen NATO's unity but also risks internal divisions and voter discontent. Economically, it may boost the defence sector but could strain public budgets and global supply chains. Militarily, it could modernize forces and enhance deterrence but risks escalating tensions with adversaries like Russia and China. (See NATO Watch Briefing 124)
NATO’s decision-making process is consensus-based, meaning one ally can block the other 31 with a veto. Earlier this month, Spanish Defence Minister Margarita Robles said Madrid would not prevent NATO allies from agreeing to a new 5% target, but that her country would stick to 2% for now. But Spain isn’t alone among NATO’s low spenders. Belgium, Canada and Italy will also struggle to increase military spending by billions of dollars.
In contrast, Poland and the Baltic countries — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — have already publicly committed to 5%, and Rutte has said that most allies were ready to endorse the goal. Swedish political parties on 19 June agreed to meet the 5% target by 2032 and to borrow as much as 300 billion krona (€27 billion) to do so.
Sánchez argued that Spain does not need to spend 5% of its GDP to fulfil its so-called capability targets agreed by NATO defence ministers earlier this month. On the lack of transparency and parliamentary oversight of these targets, see NATO Watch Briefing 126).
He also wrote that the 5% goal would jeopardize the country’s welfare system, force the government to increase taxes on the middle class, scale back commitments to the green transition and curtail international development cooperation. “It is the legitimate right of every government to decide whether or not they are willing to make those sacrifices,” he wrote. Hastening to 5% would also force Madrid to buy off-the-shelf equipment instead of fostering its own industrial base, Sánchez also wrote.
The Spanish Socialist party is in a coalition with the junior left-wing Sumar party, which opposes increased military spending.
Ukraine
The other key issue to be addressed at the Summit is future support for Ukraine. According to Newsweek, the United States is pushing allies to limit the focus on Ukraine in the NATO Summit Communique. The current draft only includes one passing mention of Ukraine's military capabilities and does not include a broad statement of support for Kyiv, according to sources cited in the report. If the draft is approved it would represent a departure from the strong statements of support for Ukraine issued at the end of recent NATO summits. In recent months, the United Kingdom, France, and other countries have pledged greater military aid to Ukraine, which has relied on Western support in its fight against Russia.
For details of The Hague Summit programme, see here.