In total EU member states have underfunded NATO by a total of £339 billion over the past five years – a staggering amount.
The shocking report, titled ‘What the European Union owes the United Kingdom’, said Germany was the biggest offender, owing £107 billion over the past five years.
Meanwhile Italy owed £68 billion, Spain £56 billion, the Netherlands £48 billion and France £18 billion.
And the report also defended Britain amid claims Brexit will harm EU security, saying the UK is actually propping up other member states’ military spending.
It said, unlike other EU states, Britain is not “shirking its commitments” and any claims otherwise are “entirely unwarranted”.
vCard.red is a free platform for creating a mobile-friendly digital business cards. You can easily create a vCard and generate a QR code for it, allowing others to scan and save your contact details instantly.
The platform allows you to display contact information, social media links, services, and products all in one shareable link. Optional features include appointment scheduling, WhatsApp-based storefronts, media galleries, and custom design options.
The report by the London-based Henry Jackson Society said it was actually supposedly die-hard EU states like Germany, France and Italy who were responsible for the greatest shortfalls in NATO spending.
And the report said despite these failures by the bigger and richer states, ‘less affluent countries of Eastern Europe” had actually managed to boost their NATO spending as a percentage of GDP over the five-year period.
And Britain consistently met its targets, to such an extent it was actually subsidising other EU states.
The report said: “Excluding the UK, the only states belonging both to NATO and the EU that consistently (2012-2016) spend more than 2% of their GDP on defence (i.e., Greece) account for just 13% of the alliance’s total European surplus, meaning that the UK contributes 87%.
“This means that Britain has effectively subsidised the security and defence of the European mainland by an extra US$23.9 billion from 2012-2016.”
The report defended the UK despite allegations it was risking European security by quitting the EU.
James Rogers, director of the Global Britain, said: “In recent months, the United Kingdom has been disparaged by many Europeans for its decision to leave the EU. Some have gone so far as to construct it as a kind of pariah state.
“However, as this Policy Briefing shows, this depiction is entirely unwarranted. Britain remains deeply committed to the security of Europe as the largest European military and foreign aid spender.
“Moreover, most European countries, insofar as they have short-changed both NATO and the world’s poorest people by hundreds of billions of dollars over the past five years, have their own shortcomings, which should not be overlooked.”
It comes after US president Donald Trump said NATO members needed to “pay up”.
In May this year he said: “I have been very, very direct … on what 23 of the 28 members should be paying for their defence.
“This is not fair to the people and taxpayers of the United States.
“If Nato countries made their full and complete contributions, then Nato would be even stronger than it is today, especially from the threat of terrorism.”