Groen and Ecolo don’t want further increase to military budget [to 2% of GDP] as was proposed by own De Croo government

22 comments

  1. > “as was proposed by De Croo”

    It’s literally part of the NATO agreement. The fact that they’ve not done so, for so long, is such a shame!

  2. Groen / ecolo refusing to adapt to current situations and keeping their dogma’s (No war / no nuclear / …) no matter what is happening in the world. Name a better duo.

  4. Fucking greens man, i swear. FOCUS ON CLIMATE CHANGE. Any political capital spent on side issues makes fighting climate change more difficult and Lord knows how hard it is already to get something done in this country, especially the long term.

  6. Incase you havnt noticed,.. WWIII is just around the corner..

    I personally dont mind a bit of money going to Defensie today.

  7. I’ve had some questions popping up in my head when reading this news:

    * I recall Groen complaining about our military not being able to get out Afghan translators when shit hit the fan in Afghanistan. I know we’re going to invest more in defense, but the need for security investments has not been so clear as over the past 24 months. Paying an insurance premium is expensive. Until you need it. NATO is an insurance premium. If you don’t want to pay the insurance premium, you typically can’t get the insurance. What is Groen’s opinion? Get out? Or stay in and pay?
    * Why communicate this now, in times of pressure?
    * Turkey was also pushing some boundaries with Finland/Sweden wanting to join. Is the real ambition of Groen to use this as a leverage to “pay less” for NATO?
    * Groen is heavily pro “gas turbines” and Russia is an important supplier to the EU (not specifically to Belgium). It are times of war close to us. Is there another agenda behind this (probably not directly, but this is what indirect influence is about)

  10. Funny how the Greens get vilified in this thread, while they agreed to the biggest increase in 30 years.

    > “Wij hebben in februari een akkoord gesloten om van 1,10 procent bbp uitgave voor het militaire apparaat naar 1,54 te gaan. Dat is een aanzienlijke inspanning. Dat is de grootste stijging in de afgelopen 30 jaar”, legt Almaci verder uit. “Nu vraagt men om naar 2 procent gaan. En dat op een moment dat onze samenleving kreunt onder sociale en maatschappelijke uitdagingen”,

    It’s the nuclear-exit blame-game all over again.

    edit: And even funnier are the downvotes. All that conginitive dissconance must be really painfull when you like to hate on the greens for giving you a guilty feeling 😉

  13. Meanwhile Greece has bought a new truck for one of their bases, upping their spending from 1.8% to 4.3% of their GDP.

  16. Misleading. Groen does not oppose the increase of the budget. They support the gradual increase as agreed upon in the govt agreement. What they oppose, is increasing the budget faster than agreed upon, ‘because Ukraine’, as they fear this will put a strain on other projects in dire and urgent need of funding.

    Sometimes it helps to actually click on the link, even if it means having to postpone the “Green bad!” sub circlejerk a few minutes.

  17. And yet again, I mostly support their platform except their geopolitics. Its an approach that leaves us weak, and even though we are surrounded by allies, it’s not like our way of life is secure (it would be blind exceptionalism to think otherwise, and I would prefer to leave the exceptionalism mentality to the Americans). At the end of the day I don’t want us to be a tasty snack for a superpower, and weak foreign policy would put us exactly in that situation.

  18. Tldr: a couple million for a respectable military isn’t worth the time.

    But several billion for people who refuse to work legally, work without paying taxes and having a massive government that rarely makes any sense is worth it!!!

  19. >Bovendien is het optrekken van dat budget geen antwoord op de oorlog in Oekraïne, vindt Almaci. “Dat antwoord hebben we gegeven op 25 februari. Maar de voorgestelde budgetvergroting heeft pas effect na 2030. Wij hopen dat de oorlog snel een einde kent”,

    Oh, you hope the war ends soon? That’s american-politics levels of stupid. Perhaps you need to provide some prayers to go along with those hopes? It’s Jambon levels of shortsightedness: “why call for the fire department, let’s just hope the house stops burning on its own…”

    How about we increase defense spending to the amount we should have been at for years already, and if Russia indeed becomes a reasonable and trustworthy nation again, we can lower the budget? Something about hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.

  22. There are bad green parties and there’s the Belgian ones. Truly the worse.

    I have taken more personal changes in my life way “greener” than what this party advocates.

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