COPENHAGEN (dpa-AFX) – The Danish government wants to invest significantly more money in defense over the next ten years. It is proposed to invest a total of around 143 billion Danish kroner (19.2 billion euros) in defense and security in the years 2024 to 2033, Acting Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said in Copenhagen on Tuesday. It is a “historic” expansion of the defense apparatus. War is raging in Europe, peace can no longer be taken for granted.
The government of Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen now wants to achieve the NATO target that two percent of gross domestic product (GDP) should flow into defense by 2030 at the latest. As can be seen from the government proposal, the defense spending of the country of 5.9 million inhabitants, according to the NATO definition, is currently around 36 billion crowns a year – by 2030 they are expected to increase to 56 billion crowns a year.
The government will now start negotiations with the other parliamentary parties this week. First of all, a broad political agreement on the general strategic orientation and the financial framework for defense in the ten-year period should be reached. Concrete initiatives are then to be decided again and again in partial agreements from autumn 2023./trs/DP/tih