Will military budgets in Europe suffer?

(B2) Will military budgets in the European Union be the first victims of the crisis? In any case, despite the NATO Secretary General's calls to order to some of his flock, some States have already announced that they are reviewing their spending forecasts for 2009. Here are a few examples...

Falling

• In Ireland, the 2009 budget announced by Minister Willy O'Dea on October 13 is one of the toughest in recent years. It is down to €817,5m (from €840m in 2008) It includes some barracks closures such as Longford, Monaghan, Rockhill House in Letterkenny and Lifford Military Post, according to The Independent.

• In Romania, Defense Minister Melescanu specified that due to the financial crisis the 2009 military budget could drop from 2,38% to 1,5% of the GDP! And the purchase of combat aircraft could be postponed to next year.

• In Slovakia, the Prime Minister, Robert Fico (SMER) would not be opposed to a reduction in the Defense budget, planned to the tune of 1,03 billion euros in 2009, according to the news channel TA 3. On the other hand, the national party, SNS, of Jan Slota - who is part of the government coalition - would like the opposite: an extension should be granted to the Armed Forces, according to him by recovering the money earned from the sale of the surplus real estate of the Ministry of Defense .

• In Hungary, Defense Minister Imre Szekeres had promised Jaap de Hoop Scheffer to increase the share of GDP devoted to defense by 0,2% annually over the next five years. This meant an annual increase of 7% in defense spending for next year, to an amount of 338,39 billion forints (1,358 billion euros), or 1,17% of GDP. This was at the time of the NATO summit in the Hungarian capital on October 9. Today, after the financial tornado that shook the country, this objective will be reviewed.

Gainer

• In France, the "Defence" budget amounts - according to the 2009 finance bill presented by the government - to €32 billion (excluding pensions), an increase of €1,6 billion compared to 2008 (i.e. +5,4 .XNUMX%).

• At United Kingdom, the 2008-2009 budget was cut to the tune of £29,1 billion (approximately 35,9 billion euros), not counting any supplements voted during the year (nb: the budget year runs from March to March).

In many European countries (France, Bulgaria, Ireland, Poland, United Kingdom...), the time has also come to rationalize expenditure, the closing and consolidation of bases and the concomitant sale of public assets is thus on the agenda to overcome these budgetary problems (keep defense budgets in balance or avoid greater cuts).

For comparison

- to USA, the military budget continues to gallop. Operations in Iraq and especially in Afghanistan oblige. According to the draft 2009 budget - the last tabled by the Bush administration - the amount allocated is $651 billion, an increase of $68 billion (compared to an estimated $583 billion in 2008 and $560 in 2007). This budget thus includes more than 100 billion euros devoted to the “global fight against terrorism”. Since 2001, the ordinary defense budget (excluding terrorism expenditure) has increased by 74%, specifies the Pentagon.

- In Russia, according to the draft federal budget for 2009-2011, the military budget will increase by 45%, the chairman of the Duma committee on defense Viktor Zavarzin told Ria Novosti. In 2009, Russian military spending will increase by 25,7%. The gross amount of military expenditure set at nearly 1.277,5 billion rubles (36 billion euros) remains "relatively modest" compared to other European budgets. With one caveat: it does not take into account the interior budget (some elite troops depend on the interior ministry).

(NGV)