PRAGUE: The United States\u2019 ambassador to \u200cNATO said on Thursday that all allies must \u201cpull their weight,\u201d after Czech lawmakers approved a 2026 budget that cuts defense outlays.<\/p>\n
Czech Prime Minister \u200bAndrej Babis\u2019 government, in power since December, pushed a revamped budget through the lower house on Wednesday evening which cut the defense ministry\u2019s allocation versus a previous proposal to 154.8 billion crowns ($7.31 billion), or 1.73 percent of gross domestic product.<\/p>\n
That is below a NATO target of 2 percent of GDP already expected before alliance members pledged last year in the Hague \u200cto raise defense spending \u200cto 3.5 percent of GDP plus \u200b1.5 percent \u200con \u2060other defense-relevant investments \u200bover \u2060the next decade.<\/p>\n
The Czech Finance Ministry says total defense spending in the budget will reach 2.07 percent of GDP, but the country\u2019s budget watchdog has warned that includes money earmarked elsewhere, like for the transport ministry for road projects, that may not be recognized by NATO.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll Allies must pull their weight and \u2060honor The Hague Defense Commitment,\u201d US Ambassador to \u200cNATO Matthew Whitaker said on X \u200con Thursday with a picture of \u200ba news headline on the Czech \u200cbudget approval.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese numbers are not arbitrary. They are about \u200cmeeting the moment \u2014 and the moment requires 5 percent as the standard. No excuses, no opt-outs.\u201d<\/p>\n
European NATO countries are under pressure to raise defense spending amid the Ukraine-Russia war \u200cand at US President Donald Trump\u2019s urging.<\/p>\n
Babis, whose populist ANO party won elections last year, said \u2060in February \u2060the country was \u201ccertainly not\u201d on the path to raising core defense spending to the 3.5 percent target, saying there was a different focus, like on health care.<\/p>\n
The budget watchdog on Thursday reiterated \u201cstrong doubts\u201d that some spending deemed defense in this year\u2019s budget would meet NATO\u2019s definition.<\/p>\n
President Petr Pavel, a former NATO official, has also said defense cuts risked a loss of trust from allies \u2014 but has signalled he would not veto the budget.<\/p>\n
US Ambassador to Prague Nicholas Merrick said last \u200bweek the Czech Republic may \u200bslip to the bottom of NATO\u2019s defense-spending ranks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PRAGUE: The United States\u2019 ambassador to \u200cNATO said on Thursday that all allies must \u201cpull their weight,\u201d after Czech lawmakers approved a 2026 budget that cuts defense outlays. Czech Prime Minister \u200bAndrej Babis\u2019 government, in power since December, pushed a revamped budget through the lower house on Wednesday evening which cut the defense ministry\u2019s allocation …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":95056,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95042"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95057,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95042\/revisions\/95057"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}