Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė has vowed to allocate additional funding for the creation of a military division, and the money will not be included in the national defence budget that is estimated to reach around 2.5 percent of GDP next year.
“We’ll need to set the dates and start developing that capability. This will exceed the existing 2.52 percent of GDP allocations. Basically, we’ll have 2.5, plus military mobility and host nation support, plus the start of the development of the division capability,” the prime minister told reporters at the parliament on Thursday.
More details on defence spending will be provided after the Finance Minister drafts the 2024 budget, she added, adding that actual defence spending “will be 2.7-2.8 percent of GDP”.
“We may have different options and percentages in that accounting, but I believe this is not the point. What is important is that we have stable funding the parties agreed on, and then we have several projects that are on top of that,” Šimonytė said.
In his State of the Nation Address on Tuesday, President Gitanas Nausėda said the existing defence funding would not be sufficient to set up a division in Lithuania’s armed forces.
Lithuania’s State Defence Council agreed to establish a division in the military back in early May, and Defence Minister Arvydas Anušauskas promised to submit the necessary bills to the parliament in June.
The ministry estimates that the cost of creating the division will amount to 200 million euros annually.
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