Croatian President Zoran Milanović, who participated in the Hague NATO summit, once again criticized the decision to increase defense spending to five percent of each member state’s GDP and again questioned Croatia’s interest in this.
“When we talk about increasing defense costs to five percent of GDP, as the Croatian president, I am primarily interested in how to secure Croatian interests and how much military equipment we can buy for that amount. I spoke about this at the NATO summit because it is a key topic if we are already going, and we are going, to increase defense spending,” Milanović wrote on his Facebook account.
Croatia’s interest, he stated, is to plan and define capabilities that are important to us and to spend as little money as possible, which we will pay to others, to achieve that goal.
“If we in Croatia are going to produce military equipment, great, but if we are going to buy military equipment at increasingly higher prices and thus give our money to others, then that is not in Croatia’s interest. Therefore, let them guarantee prices for the military equipment we will buy because we cannot allow private companies to sell us goods at prices they will dictate because there is a small supply of military equipment on the market,” Milanović stated.
NATO leaders on Wednesday supported a large increase in defense investment requested by US President Donald Trump and reaffirmed their commitment to mutual defense in the event of an attack.
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Source: Tanjug; Photo: ATA Images