During an address at the Palácio Fronteira in Lisbon, Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was asked by journalists about the meeting of the National Defense Council. He stated that the council “carefully reviewed the investments to be made over the coming years.”
The head of state and commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces highlighted that the discussion included not only “the immediate 2%” of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a target to be achieved by the end of this year, “but also what will be invested until 2035 — therefore, it is a much broader period — and the need to revise the Military Programming Law.”
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa noted that this law has “a 12-year implementation period and is currently at its midway point or at least in an advanced phase of application.”
The President lauded the National Defense Council’s work as “important and detailed” and mentioned that “this review will continue after the summer.”
“We will now wait for the final decision, and then, at the appropriate time, the final decision — which, as is well-known, impacts the Military Programming Law that goes to the Assembly of the Republic — it takes some time to be reviewed and effectively implemented,” he added.
In a note released at the end of today’s meeting, the National Defense Council conducted “an analysis of the international defense and security situation” in the context of NATO and the European Union, presenting an investment plan of 2% of the GDP in the area of National Defense until the end of 2025.
At the recent NATO summit in The Hague at the end of June, Prime Minister Luís Montenegro stated that Portugal needs to bolster the Defense budget by around one billion euros by the end of the year to reach the 2% GDP target. This is to be accomplished through “enhancement of human resources,” by bringing forward some goals of the Military Programming Law, and investment in infrastructure.
During the summit, allies committed to investing 5% of their GDP in military expenses by 2035, with 3.5% allocated to defense-related expenses and an additional 1.5% to other investments such as infrastructure and industry.
