Greece will almost double its defense spending after parliament approved the 2025 state budget Sunday with a roll-call vote, traditionally regarded as a vote of confidence in the government. With 159 out of a total of 299 votes cast, the State budget for the fiscal year 2025 was ratified while the defense expenditure was approved by a larger majority. Spending for the defense ministry will rise to 6.1 billion euros ($6.5 billion) from 3.6 billion euros, due to the increase in equipment deliveries in 2025.
“Compared to 2019, by 2025, spending on health will have increased by 74 percent and spending on defense by 73 percent, underlining the government’s priorities,” Minister of Economy and Finance **Kostis Hatzidakis** had said late November on submitting the budget to parliament. Major opposition parties, PASOK and SYRIZA, as well as the Hellenic Solution party, had agreed that they would support the goverment in approving the increased defense spending.
**Nikos Dendias**, the defense minister, told parliament Saturday that the spending is essential because of the challenges the country faces, especially from historic rival Turkey. “Is this spending too much? Whoever is positioning themselves on this topic, needs to explain what criteria they are considering. Is the country threatened? And where is the main threat to the country coming from?” he said, noting that Turkey spends 26.8 billion euros ($28 billion) on armaments.
Greece spends around three percent of its annual economic output on defense, higher than most EU states, mainly because of long-running tension with Turkey. Greek armed forces had a 20-billion-euro shortfall during the country’s decade-long debt crisis, Dendias said in November, when he announced a shake up of defense forces to sideline older weapons in favor of drones after lessons drawn from Ukraine’s war against Russia.
# Defense Dome
Among the main changes in the radical overhaul is the creation of an anti-air and anti-drone defense dome covering the whole of Greece.
“Greece today is charting its own roadmap in terms of stability and growth in an international environment of instability,” Prime Minister **Kyriakos Mitsotakis** said Sunday, hailing the backing of opposition groups. Mitsotakis drew a parallel with the difficulties the governments of “big countries” such as France and Germany in particular and also Italy were now facing in seeking majority support for their own budgets amid political or economic turmoil.
The Greek prime minister also announced five measures to rectify the operation of banks for the benefit of citizens.
Among them are the end of charges for many banking transactions, including bill payments, as well as the contribution of 100 million euros ($105 million) to a program for the construction of new schools by the four largest Greek banks. Hatzidakis said during his closing speech on Sunday that what the government is seeking is “to have a healthy banking system on the one hand and on the other hand a banking system that actually works for the economy and society – without making citizens feel excluded from it, or more importantly, victims of it.”
Greece’s financial crisis saw an EU bailout conditional on severe austerity measures and structural reforms and policies, with Hatzidakis saying Greek citizens paid for the survival of the banks out of their pockets.
Do they still conscript people and pay them an insulting salary?
For anyone wondering:
We still have G3 as our assault rifles, many of our tanks are leopard 1, we are scheduled to receive new (and famously expensive) f35 and we need the upkeep, there talks for new linx troop transports, there is the ongoing need to modernise the navy. So yeah, we have a lot of catching up to do a defense spending is a rare instance where most major parties agree needs more attention.
They cite tensions with Turkey, but both countries are in NATO. How would it work if there were a war and they both invoked Article 5?
Military industrial complex is a alive and well around the world.Just imagine if every country stop funding their army for a decade the amount of improvements the country can make like healthcare,infrastructure,schools,etc.
AKA: The Guilfoyle Defensive
All of Europe should arm up at this point.
Go Greece 🇬🇷
Good! Hopefully Greece joins a program like CV90 or Leopard2A8 to help faciliate expansion of production facilities. Greece has the 2nd largest tank forces in Europe, but also very outdated. An order of several thousand eqiupment over the next 10 years will likely be drawn up.
Modernize everything and get some local factories setup as well.
The absurd situation of Greece is that it needs to double its budget not to defend itself from Russia, China, ISIS or Iran but from a NATO “ally”, Turkey!!!!
I guess they are worried about an attack from the Phoenicians.
This just adds to the growing defense spending each country is investing today for the next 1600-3200 days.
I mean it makes sense. They are not a place of conflict but they are at a nexus of multiple hot (or potentially hot) areas: Balkans, Ukraine, Turkey/Syria/Israel, and North Africa
I think a lot of this is proxy spending to support Ukraine or other European allies as well in the face of unpredictable American involvement in the next few years. Greece proudly held their own against Italy in WWII until the Germans came and steamrolled them
If the entire West is going to have to go back to wasting money on weapons because of Putin and his fascist buddies, can we please at least put them to good use an kick their asses in return? Thanks!
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Greece will almost double its defense spending after parliament approved the 2025 state budget Sunday with a roll-call vote, traditionally regarded as a vote of confidence in the government. With 159 out of a total of 299 votes cast, the State budget for the fiscal year 2025 was ratified while the defense expenditure was approved by a larger majority. Spending for the defense ministry will rise to 6.1 billion euros ($6.5 billion) from 3.6 billion euros, due to the increase in equipment deliveries in 2025.
“Compared to 2019, by 2025, spending on health will have increased by 74 percent and spending on defense by 73 percent, underlining the government’s priorities,” Minister of Economy and Finance **Kostis Hatzidakis** had said late November on submitting the budget to parliament. Major opposition parties, PASOK and SYRIZA, as well as the Hellenic Solution party, had agreed that they would support the goverment in approving the increased defense spending.
**Nikos Dendias**, the defense minister, told parliament Saturday that the spending is essential because of the challenges the country faces, especially from historic rival Turkey. “Is this spending too much? Whoever is positioning themselves on this topic, needs to explain what criteria they are considering. Is the country threatened? And where is the main threat to the country coming from?” he said, noting that Turkey spends 26.8 billion euros ($28 billion) on armaments.
Greece spends around three percent of its annual economic output on defense, higher than most EU states, mainly because of long-running tension with Turkey. Greek armed forces had a 20-billion-euro shortfall during the country’s decade-long debt crisis, Dendias said in November, when he announced a shake up of defense forces to sideline older weapons in favor of drones after lessons drawn from Ukraine’s war against Russia.
# Defense Dome
Among the main changes in the radical overhaul is the creation of an anti-air and anti-drone defense dome covering the whole of Greece.
“Greece today is charting its own roadmap in terms of stability and growth in an international environment of instability,” Prime Minister **Kyriakos Mitsotakis** said Sunday, hailing the backing of opposition groups. Mitsotakis drew a parallel with the difficulties the governments of “big countries” such as France and Germany in particular and also Italy were now facing in seeking majority support for their own budgets amid political or economic turmoil.
The Greek prime minister also announced five measures to rectify the operation of banks for the benefit of citizens.
Among them are the end of charges for many banking transactions, including bill payments, as well as the contribution of 100 million euros ($105 million) to a program for the construction of new schools by the four largest Greek banks. Hatzidakis said during his closing speech on Sunday that what the government is seeking is “to have a healthy banking system on the one hand and on the other hand a banking system that actually works for the economy and society – without making citizens feel excluded from it, or more importantly, victims of it.”
Greece’s financial crisis saw an EU bailout conditional on severe austerity measures and structural reforms and policies, with Hatzidakis saying Greek citizens paid for the survival of the banks out of their pockets.
Do they still conscript people and pay them an insulting salary?
For anyone wondering:
We still have G3 as our assault rifles, many of our tanks are leopard 1, we are scheduled to receive new (and famously expensive) f35 and we need the upkeep, there talks for new linx troop transports, there is the ongoing need to modernise the navy. So yeah, we have a lot of catching up to do a defense spending is a rare instance where most major parties agree needs more attention.
They cite tensions with Turkey, but both countries are in NATO. How would it work if there were a war and they both invoked Article 5?
Military industrial complex is a alive and well around the world.Just imagine if every country stop funding their army for a decade the amount of improvements the country can make like healthcare,infrastructure,schools,etc.
AKA: The Guilfoyle Defensive
All of Europe should arm up at this point.
Go Greece 🇬🇷
Good! Hopefully Greece joins a program like CV90 or Leopard2A8 to help faciliate expansion of production facilities. Greece has the 2nd largest tank forces in Europe, but also very outdated. An order of several thousand eqiupment over the next 10 years will likely be drawn up.
Modernize everything and get some local factories setup as well.
The absurd situation of Greece is that it needs to double its budget not to defend itself from Russia, China, ISIS or Iran but from a NATO “ally”, Turkey!!!!
I guess they are worried about an attack from the Phoenicians.
This just adds to the growing defense spending each country is investing today for the next 1600-3200 days.
I mean it makes sense. They are not a place of conflict but they are at a nexus of multiple hot (or potentially hot) areas: Balkans, Ukraine, Turkey/Syria/Israel, and North Africa
I think a lot of this is proxy spending to support Ukraine or other European allies as well in the face of unpredictable American involvement in the next few years. Greece proudly held their own against Italy in WWII until the Germans came and steamrolled them
If the entire West is going to have to go back to wasting money on weapons because of Putin and his fascist buddies, can we please at least put them to good use an kick their asses in return? Thanks!
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