Nato, the Democratic Party demolishes the agreement signed by Meloni: "5% means less healthcare and less public school, more taxes for Italians"
"The NATO agreement is wrong because it is simply unsustainable. From a financial point of view and above all for the economic and social consequences it will produce. Let's be clear: going from 2 to 5 percent of spending on defense and security, even in ten years, means more weapons, certainly, but inevitably - if we do not want to create further debt - less public health, less public school, more taxes . A real blow: this will be the result of the agreement imposed by Trump on NATO and endorsed without a murmur by the Meloni government". Senator Antonio Misiani, economic manager of the Democratic Party , told Affaritaliani.it.
"In 2025, assuming the reclassification of military spending announced by Giorgetti, Italy will spend 2% of GDP on defense and security, or 45 billion euros. Based on the agreement reached today at the NATO summit, we will have to increase spending from 2% to 5% of GDP by 2035. In absolute terms, according to estimates by the Observatory on Italian military spending, from 45 billion in 2025 to 145 billion in 2035, with a steady-state increase of 100 billion euros . Between 2026 and 2035, the Observatory estimates additional cumulative spending of up to 445 billion. To find this money without further increasing the public debt, which is already very high , the State will have to cut public spending, starting with the most important items (pensions, healthcare, education, investments, public employment) and increase taxes . To give some terms of comparison, the increase in Italian military spending resulting from the NATO agreement (100 billion) is equal to three-quarters of health spending (140 billion) and is higher than education spending (85 billion). As for taxes, 100 billion is three times the IRAP revenue and five times the IMU revenue", underlines the Democratic Party representative.
"For Italy, all this represents a commitment that is simply unsustainable. For Europe, it is a strategically wrong choice, which will increase national defense budgets beyond measure without any serious commitment to collaboration on a European basis, with the concrete risk of using a good part of these public resources in an inefficient and ineffective way ."
"We would have followed a radically different path. Spanish Prime Minister Sanchez was right to contest the agreement. Strengthening Europe's military protection capacity requires truly common defense. Common industrial projects on weapons systems, first of all: today in the 27 countries of the Union there are 178, compared to 30 in the USA. We have 20 models of combat aircraft, compared to 6 American ones . We need coordinated supplies, we need to exploit all possible economies of scale, to use much more effectively than today the large amount of money already allocated to defense in Europe, about 330 billion euros which rises to 400 including the United Kingdom . The leaders of the European NATO countries, Meloni at the forefront, preferred to please the American president, but in doing so they took on a very heavy responsibility towards their citizens", concludes Misiani.
Affari Italiani
