{"id":269699,"date":"2025-07-17T15:57:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T15:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/269699\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T15:57:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T15:57:14","slug":"are-eu-citizens-on-board-with-higher-defence-spending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/269699\/","title":{"rendered":"Are EU citizens on board with higher defence spending?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By&nbspAlessio Dellanna<\/a>&nbsp&&nbspMert Can Yilmaz<\/b><\/p>\n

\n Published on
\n 17\/07\/2025 – 17:35 GMT+2\n <\/p>\n

\"\"
\n ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n

Calls from the European Union and NATO for increased military spending aren’t exactly resonating among the EU public.<\/p>\n

A recent Eurobarometer poll <\/a>showed EU citizens are not exactly eager to spend money on defence, despite growing warnings from NATO and the EU about the risk of future conflicts.<\/p>\n

Fewer than one in four people (23%) want the EU to use its funds for military purposes.<\/p>\n

Which countries show the least support for military spending?<\/p>\n

A recent joint report <\/a>by Bruegel and the Kiel Institute claimed that a new Russian aggression is “conceivable”, citing NATO claims that Moscow might be “ready to attack within three to ten years”.<\/p>\n

Yet, defence capabilities and infrastructure rank only seventh out of 10 proposed areas of investment in the Eurobarometer poll.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, public opinion seems deeply fractured across the bloc. <\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, support for more defence spending is highest among Russia’s close neighbours: 50% in Estonia and 46% in both Finland and Lithuania.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, backing is much lower in countries like Italy (12%), Bulgaria (13%), Spain (17%), Ireland (15%), Slovenia and Hungary (14%).<\/p>\n

‘Too many leaders playing scare tactics’<\/p>\n

Daniel Fiott, head of defence at Brussels’ Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy (CSDS), explains why leaders are failing to get the message across.<\/p>\n

“You cannot convince people living in western and southern Europe that Russian troops will be landing in their capital cities anytime soon; yet, we know that in many frontline states in eastern and central Europe, this is precisely the fear for citizens.”<\/p>\n

“So, the messaging for individual countries needs to be tailored. As of now, too many leaders are playing scare tactics with the public \u2014 this will not work,” Fiott added.<\/p>\n

Current global economic turbulence isn’t helping to drive more support, he says.<\/p>\n

“I strongly support more defence spending in Europe, but the NATO 5% spending target can be achieved in a context where the US is imposing tariffs on the EU and where the global economy is sputtering, is unclear to me.”<\/p>\n

“Although a short-sighted view, many citizens in Europe will not want to spend more on defence because they automatically fear that other public services will suffer.”<\/p>\n

More houses, fewer tourists: Europeans’ top priorities<\/p>\n

Instead of defence, respondents point to areas like health and education as top priorities (49%), followed by climate action and environment protection (38%).<\/p>\n

Denmark is the most climate-concerned country (58%), before Malta (56%) and Italy (46%).<\/p>\n

Job creation is the third most pressing issue (31%) across the bloc, particularly in Romania, Greece and Lithuania.<\/p>\n

These areas are followed by housing (27%), which appears particularly problematic in central Europe, as Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia show the highest rates (35%) after Cyprus (40%) of people wanting the EU to place funds on it.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, amid growing pressure from mass travel<\/a>, tourism, and cultural heritage received the least support for public investment (12%).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By&nbspAlessio Dellanna&nbsp&&nbspMert Can Yilmaz Published on 17\/07\/2025 – 17:35 GMT+2 ADVERTISEMENT Calls from the European Union and NATO…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[1194,2993,32,2000,299,5187,1699,2597,47],"class_list":{"0":"post-269699","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-budget","9":"tag-defence","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-european-union","15":"tag-military","16":"tag-poll"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114869400014517988","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}