How Europe is investing in defence: Poland has exceeded NATO expectations by double, ranking among the leaders, and Lithuania is also making significant contributions

Sunday, Dec 8, 2024

Delfi

Europe increases defense spending, boosting military procurement and supporting national defense industries.

🔗 Read the article on delfi.lt

[This is an automatically generated summary, for reference only]

Military spending is increasing across Europe, with France aiming for 69 billion euros and Germany allocating around 58 billion euros in 2023, while the UK exceeded 60 billion euros and Italy spent 28 billion euros. Total European defense spending is projected to reach 400 billion euros by 2025, supporting NATO’s 2% GDP defense target, which several countries, including Lithuania, are already surpassing. Lithuania spent nearly 6.1 billion euros on defense between 2022 and 2024, with the 2024 budget representing 3.2% of GDP. Increased funding allows for greater investment in modern weaponry, with the largest portion of acquisitions between 2022-2024 going to weaponry and military equipment (about 46%), followed by ammunition (about 35%). Major defense producers in Europe include France, Germany, Italy, and the UK, which are also key players in NATO and the EU. Lithuania primarily procures from the US (about 20% of contracts), followed by Germany (over 10%), and then Norway, with purchases also made from France, the UK, and the Netherlands. A significant portion of defense spending remains within the Lithuanian economy, with at least 62% spent on domestic goods and services, and the national defense industry is growing. Heightened tensions are prompting Baltic and neighboring countries to strengthen their defenses, with Poland being a leading example, having signed contracts worth billions for air defense systems, heavy artillery, and unmanned aerial vehicles.

🔗 Read the original article

Previous page Fresh cheese and sheep grazing under a solar panel: renewable energy sources share land with farmers
Next page The Romanian Constitutional Court ultimately annulled the entire election, and there are reports of Russian interference

© 2026 Pulse - Europe beyond the beat


PULSE is an initiative for cross-border collaborative journalism in Europe co-funded by the European Commission under Grant Agreement n. PO 4500158093.

PULSE is an initiative coordinated by OBCT that has been promoting intensive journalistic cross-border collaborations in Europe since 2024. Its main aim is to help strengthen the European public sphere by reporting on and telling stories from new and diverse perspectives.

At the heart of PULSE are 10 leading national news outlets (Delfi – Lithuania, Deník Referendum – Czechia, Der Standard – Austria, EfSyn – Greece, El Confidencial – Spain, Gazeta Wyborcza – Poland, HotNews – Romania, HVG – Hungary, Il Sole 24 Ore – Italy, Mediapool – Bulgaria) and three transnational organisations, including OBCT , n-ost and Voxeurop .

Additional outlets and journalists are involved as associate partners, including EUobserver , Føljeton (Denmark), H-Alter (Croatia), Levila (Estonia), Rubryka (Ukraine), and The Journal Investigates (Ireland).

PULSE is driven by a sort of virtual transnational newsroom made up of journalists from all the publications involved. It collaboratively produces new journalistic content on European issues on a daily basis, coming in many different languages. The editorial output amounts to over a thousand publications per year, mostly in article form.

PULSE also runs 4 thematic networks open to any European journalist interested in crucial issues such as EU enlargement, relations between the EU and other global powers, the EU’s green transition, or media and the information society. These networks function as online communities and periodically publish calls for pitches.