Sweden boosts 2025 defence budget to 2.4% of GDP

Sweden boosts 2025 defence budget to 2.4% of GDP
by AFP Staff Writers
Stockholm (AFP) Sept 17, 2024
Sweden on Tuesday said it was upping its defence budget for next year by 13 billion kronor ($1.3 billion), keeping the new NATO member well in line with the alliance's military spending minimums.

The increase will mean that Sweden's defence budget in 2025 would amount 138 billion kronor, or 2.4 percent of GDP, the government said, above the 2 percent of GDP minimum that NATO expects its members to allot to defence.

For 2024, defence spending was expected to stand at 2.2 percent of GDP, according to government estimates.

The Nordic country dropped two centuries of military non-alignment and applied for membership in the US-led alliance in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine -- becoming the 32nd member in March of this year.

"The security situation has continued to deteriorate," Defence Minister Pal Jonson told a press conference.

Further investments were also announced going up to 2030, which were expected to bring the total military budget to the equivalent of 2.6 percent of GDP by 2028.

In April, a Swedish parliamentary commission recommended measures to strengthen the country's armed forces and bring defence spending to 2.6 percent of GDP.

The Swedish Defence Commission said the Scandinavian country needed to respond to new conditions, citing heightened tensions in Europe following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Sweden's recent integration into the NATO military alliance.

It recommended additional army brigades and navy personnel, a rise in the number of conscripts trained up every year and the creation of Sweden's first ever rocket artillery unit.

In a statement, the government said the 2025 defence budget aimed to "increase the Swedish Armed Forces' operational capacity by investing in personnel, materiel and infrastructure."

It said the target for 2025, was for "8,000 conscripts to complete basic training."

Sweden drastically slashed its defence spending after the end of the Cold War but reversed course following Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea.

In March 2022, after Russia's full-fledged invasion of Ukraine, Stockholm announced it would increase spending again, aiming to dedicate two percent of GDP to defence "as soon as possible".