Defence spending in Europe on a downward curve: Report

Analyst firm Forecast International''s "Europe Market Overview" offers a not very rosy picture of Europe''s status as a defence market.

According to Forecast International analyst Dan Darling, "Currently only four dual EU-NATO members have military budgets that allocate the NATO minimum requisite of 2 per cent of annual GDP for defence: France, the United Kingdom, Bulgaria and Romania.

Greece, which is one of the bigger defence spenders in Europe, is reining in its budget, bringing it down to 1 per cent of GDP or less through 2015.

Forecast International projects that, by 2011, total defence spending across the European continent will amount to just under $300 billion.

"As it now stands, the European dual EU-NATO members have a rough total of $234.34 billion allocated toward defence among them for 2007, with the combined spending of France and the UK representing almost 55 per cent of that total. And this is only the financial aspect - the manpower and equipment facets of each nation''s armed forces are also severely strained…. defence spending across the entire European continent will reach only $266 billion in 2007, or about 58 per cent of the US baseline defence budget of $462 billion for the current fiscal year…. many of these nations'' domestic defence industrial bases feel the crunch from lack of state orders needed to sustain themselves.

"What you have today is a Europe that seeks to project greater international involvement and security responsibility, whether through defensive measures in Afghanistan or humanitarian or peacekeeping operations in Lebanon, Kosovo and areas of Africa."

"Yet these governments are asking more from their downsized militaries while providing less by way of defence appropriations…. So long as Europe''s public at large lacks the perception of a distinct security threat, raising defence spending will not be an immediate concern in European capitals, thus forcing governments to confront hard choices."