Published on Politico
On June 17th, 2026
As European alliance members prepare to take more responsibility for their defense and the U.S. pulls back, not everyone is spending what they pledged.
NATO leaders arrive in Ankara next month having pledged to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense by 2035. But for several allies, the gap between promise and reality remains large.
The alliance’s Secretary-General Mark Rutte is set to present a classified assessment of members’ progress toward the new spending target as defense ministers meet on Thursday, according to three NATO diplomats. The review will put fresh scrutiny on countries that remain far from meeting the benchmark pushed by U.S. President Donald Trump.
The assessment comes at a delicate moment for the alliance. European governments are racing to demonstrate they are taking greater responsibility for their own defense as Washington reduces the military resources it commits to NATO and Trump continues to press allies over burden-sharing.
While all NATO members signed up to the 5 percent goal — spending 3.5 percent of GDP on core military capabilities and a further 1.5 percent on broader security-related investments by 2035 — the distance between pledge and reality remains wide. Some countries are already moving rapidly to increase military spending. Others face political resistance, budget constraints or questions about whether their plans will satisfy NATO’s accounting rules.
“Ahead of the summit in Ankara … I expect nations to present clear, concrete and credible plans to reach that goal,” Rutte said Wednesday, noting that some countries like Slovenia, Albania and the Czech Republic did not meet the alliance’s pre-2025 2 percent of GDP spending goal.
Those governments risk finding themselves in Trump’s crosshairs as alliance leaders prepare for their next summit in Turkey. A White House official told POLITICO: “President Trump expects NATO allies to abide by their five percent defense spending pledge.”
Here are the allies most vulnerable to criticism over defense spending in the run-up to the leaders’ meeting in Ankara in July.
Spain
Spain has been NATO’s — and Trump’s — punching bag ever since the country refused to commit to the alliance’s 5 percent spending target last year, claiming it could generate the military capabilities required to fight Russia by spending 2.1 percent of GDP.
This year, Madrid allocated €34 billion for its defense expenditures, said Félix Arteaga, a senior fellow at the Elcano Royal Institute think tank, bringing spending to 2 percent of GDP.
Yet questions remain about future funding. A €10 billion plan by Madrid to ramp up spending, released just before last year’s NATO summit, earmarks some €4 billion to telecoms, cyber defense and natural disaster response. “My fear [is] that in the future, [much of that] could be discounted by NATO’s accounting system” for military spending, Arteaga said.
Add to that, Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has emerged as one of Trump’s top European critics, so the latter is unlikely to cut him any slack. So when it comes to a blow-up over defense spending, “the risk is clearly there,” said Luis Simón, a security and diplomacy professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
Trump blow-up risk: 💥💥💥💥💥
The U.K.
Britain has signed up to NATO’s 5 percent target, but so far only 2.6 percent is fully funded.
Departmental spending plans set by Chancellor Rachel Reeves put the country on track to reach 2.6 percent spending on defense by 2027, but there’s no budget roadmap to meet the rest, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer only setting an “ambition” to hit 3 percent of GDP in defense spending in the next parliament.
The funding gap burst into the open this month when Defence Secretary John Healey resigned over the lack of additional money for Britain’s upcoming Defence Investment Plan. In his letter to Starmer, he warned that the DIP only guaranteed an extra 0.08 percent increase between 2027 and 2030. Britain has “no path” to meeting the 3.5 percent spending target on core military capabilities, he said Thursday.
The DIP will now be rewritten under the new Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis and published before the Ankara summit, with Downing Street refusing to commit extra money to what was agreed before.
Trump has form to call out Starmer and the U.K.: He has more than once attacked Starmer over his stance on the Iran war, but the British prime minister said that at the G7 this week he had “very productive, very good conversations” with the U.S president.
Trump blow-up risk: 💥💥💥
Hungary
Hungary spent an estimated 2.06 percent on defense in 2025, according to NATO. But the new center-right government of Prime Minister Péter Magyar is still facing a difficult situation.
Under its previous leader, Viktor Orbán, Hungary had applied for €16 billion from the EU’s Security Action for Europe loans-for-weapons scheme. His successor Magyar, has said he will review the request. EU officials say that they expect Budapest to ask only for a third of this amount, reducing the scope for additional defense spending.
And while the new government’s program confirms Hungary’s commitment to the EU and NATO, “the defense budget could now temporarily fall below 2 percent” as the new government grapples with strained public finances after years of high deficits, said Tamas Csiki Varga, a senior research fellow at the John Lukacs Institute for Strategy and Politics at Ludovika University.
Orbán and his circle’s close ties to Trump and the MAGA movement may also push the U.S. president to look for a reason to attack Magyar’s new government.
Trump blow-up risk: 💥💥💥💥
Czech Republic
Like Hungary, the Czech Republic recorded a year-on-year drop in defense spending in 2025.
This year, Prague intends to allocate 2.1 percent of its GDP toward defense, but only by counting a €1.2 billion highway upgrade as part of its military spending — a move that’s raised eyebrows among NATO allies. Populist Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš has admitted expenditure would “probably” fall below the 2 percent for 2026.
The government has proposed no legal bills on defense, said Petra Guasti, an associate professor of political science at Prague’s Charles University.
Yet Prague is set to unveil a new military strategy in “the coming week” focusing on growing military personnel and counter-drone defenses, a Czech official said, which will likely involve shifting funds from other ministries. Meeting the 2 percent goal will “definitely … happen within the remit of this government, maybe next year,” they said, a promise that could keep Trump onside.
The right-wing populist Babiš’s support for the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran could also reduce the likelihood of a spat, the official added.
Trump blow-up risk: 💥💥💥
Slovenia
NATO has reportedly privately questioned Slovenia’s accounting methods. In a letter to Ljubljana last month, Rutte argued that the country’s defense spending only reached 2.01 percent of GDP “in large part, by including projects that do not fall under the agreed definition for core defence expenditure.” When these projects were excluded, defense spending was closer to 1.6 percent.
Rutte’s criticism is largely justified, said Jelena Juvan, chair of defense studies at Ljubljana University. The former government last year “said that it will use innovative calculating in order to reach” the alliance targets, she added. Defense spending became politically controversial under former center-left leader Robert Golob’s government, which at one point flirted with the idea of a referendum on NATO membership before abandoning the idea.
However, the new right-leaning government of Prime Minister Janez Janša wants to change gear, said Katja Geršak, head of the think tank Trivelis Institute for Defence, Security and Resilience. It “has shown up to now in public statements … that it really wants to show its commitment to NATO and EU and to restore Slovenia’s credibility,” she said. Janša has repeatedly argued for higher defense spending, which could earn him a pass from Trump this time.
Trump blow-up risk: 💥💥💥
Italy
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has long been one of Trump’s closest allies in Europe, despite a recent spat over Trump’s comments against the pope and Meloni’s lack of support for the war in Iran. At this week’s G7 summit, she told him “we have always been friends.”
Yet with elections looming next year, and defense spending very unpopular in the country, Meloni has been struggling to find a balance. Speaking in parliament earlier this month, she said that she will go to the NATO summit with a planned defense and security expenditure of 2.8 percent for this year, including 0.7 percent for domestic security, including police duties.
Rome can point to its large defense industry and naval presence in the Mediterranean, said Beniamino Irdi, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. And Meloni’s close relationship with Trump may shield Rome from some criticism.
“But these are unlikely to carry the same weight in Washington if they are not accompanied by a sustained increase in defense capabilities,” he warned.
Trump blow-up risk: 💥💥