Italy has reached the minimum NATO
target of spending 2% of its GDP on defence, Defence Minister
Guido Crosetto said Thursday saying this was an important result
but it was just a point of departure.
"We have done what we promised to do, we have achieved the
result and it is already an important thing", Crosetto said.
"We know very well that this is a starting point," he added on
the sidelines of a ceremony for the change of leadership of the
Air Force.
"Our goal is not to achieve a numerical result but to have the
capabilities that NATO asks us to give to the Alliance and to
have the ability to secure and defend this country.
"Unfortunately," the minister stressed, "since we come from a
very long period in which the resources were not what were
needed to reach these objectives, it will take many years to
recover the deficit accumulated in the last decades.
"It is not that reaching 2% puts us in a position to be okay and
we must recover all the percentages of GDP not invested in the
last thirty years that are the ones the Americans reproach us
for and that are missing to have a defence like the one we would
like to have".
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