Report 58: “Spanish military budget sees a massive increase in 2023. The myth of 2% spending on Defense is overcome”

This new report analyzes Spanish military spending for 2023 and finds that it reaches a 2.17% of the GDP, surpassing the NATO guideline if we take into account funds allocated to other departments with a military purpose.

The budget of the Ministry of Defense increases in 2023 by 26.31 % with the aim of reaching the 2 % of GDP required by NATO. Pedro Sánchez made the commitment to achieve this goal after the NATO Summit in Madrid in June 2022, but the reality is that military spending in these 2023 budget will already exceed the much-vaunted 2 % of GDP by 17 tenths of a percentage point.

According to the Spanish Government’s criteria, the amount allocated to the Defense sector as a whole will be 14.45 billion euros. But according to the analysis of the Centre Delàs, which in addition to adding items distributed in the budgets of other ministries, thus following NATO criteria, takes into account the existing differences between the amounts initially budgeted and those executed at the end of the year, as well as the proportional part of the interests of the public debt corresponding to Defense, the real Spanish military expenditure for 2023 will already exceed the spending target of the Atlantic Alliance, reaching 27.61 billion euros, almost twice the amount allocated to the Ministry of Defense, and the equivalent of 75.7 million euros per day.

The publication also highlights how 3 out of every 10 euros invested by the State in 2023 (real investments plus R&D credits, not counting those of the regional governments) will go to weapons investments, amounting to 7.74 billion, which represents an increase of 68.92% over the previous year.
Within these investments stands out especially the increase applied to military R&D appropriations within the Ministry of Industry, which grow by 126.09%; this means more than double the 708.20 million euros in 2022, reaching 1.6 billion.

Authors: Xavier Bohigas, Xema Moya and Pere Ortega.

Read and download the executive summary in Spanish and in Catalan; and the full report in Spanish and in Catalan.