EMPIRICAL STUDY ON THE FINANCING OF THE DEFENSE IN STATES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION, NATO MEMBERS

Abstract

In the economic policy of the European Union, the expenses for the defence and security of the Community bloc must be correctly delimited. NATO s functioning, strengthened over seven decades, can be maintained at immediate response, only by the existence of adequate financial, human, material, logistical or other resources necessary to achieve the military capabilities established by agreements. Starting from this desideratum, the question arises: what is the cost of maintaining peace, borne by EU citizens?The paper aims at a theoretical and pragmatic approach to highlight the practice used in NATO financing, the financial contribution of EU member states and the interest shown in financing their own defence budgets. NATO membership is the guarantee of national defence and the maintenance of peace and the responsibility for defence, security and safety remains with each Member State. The way in which Member States comply with NATO recommendations, ensure adequate funding, employ well-trained staff, have high-performance defence equipment and infrastructure, and contribute to peacekeeping.The study, based on the literature review, information from reports and economic situations provided by NATO, Eurostat, Globalfirepower, Sipri, as well as other open sources, was conducted for a number of 21 EU member states that are part of the NATO, in the period 2010-2019. The study starts from two research hypotheses. These assumptions are followed by the implementation of the recommendations of the 2014 Wales summit. At the same time, we aimed to highlight the efficiency and effectiveness of defence expenditures.The conclusion from the research highlights that, the level of allocations to the defence budget is influenced by the options of political decisions, rather than analysis based on economic indicators and the level of expenditures made from defence budgets for the purchase of military equipment, is affected by the size of the military and implicitly by personnel costs.