German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius played down questions about his country's ability to sustain defence spending of 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) for 2024.
"We are above 2%, that is the message," Pistorius said at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday. "A good horse doesn't jump higher than it has to," he added.
For the first time in three decades, Germany notified NATO of planned defence spending amounting to at least 2% of its GDP, according to information obtained by dpa.
The German government reported allocating the equivalent of $73.41 billion for defence spending in the current year, a record figure for Germany in absolute terms, and would amount to 2.01% of GDP, according to the current NATO forecast.
In the past, according to documents from the NATO archives, Germany last spent 2% of its GDP in 1992. In the Cold War years, the ratio was usually over 3%.
Should Germany's economy grow by more than expected in 2024 then the planned defence spending may fall under the 2% NATO target. This outcome did not trouble Pistorius.
"If GDP at the end of the year was higher than we could have anticipated at the beginning, then nobody can be blamed for that," he said.
Ministers from NATO's member states are in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss their support for Ukraine's war effort, as well as their defence spending commitments.
Wednesday's meeting, officially, is a US-coordinated gathering of Ukraine-supporting allies and not of NATO itself. Thursday's event is a NATO ministerial meeting proper.
