Lisbon, Nov. 13, 2024 (Lusa) - Portugal's minister of defence accused the Socialist party (PS) of sending NATO an incorrect figure for military spending in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), saying that it is 1.34% and not 1.48%.
"In 2023, the figure reported by the government to NATO for defence investment was 1.48% [of GDP], so when we started our duties, we thought we were starting from 1.48%. I'm very sorry to have to tell MPs and the country today that the figure of 1.48% reported by the PS to NATO is not true," accused Nuno Melo, who is being heard in Parliament as part of the proposed State Budget for 2025 (OE2025).
According to the minister, the figure for investment in Defence "was 1.34% and not 1.48%", which equates to "€300 million less investment in Defence in 2023".
Even so, Nuno Melo said that the PSD/CDS government will maintain its goal of reaching 2% of GDP in military spending by 2029, emphasising that it will have to make up this figure.
PS MP Luís Dias took the floor to contest this accusation, saying that the revision of the GDP figure "obviously affects and has consequences for the value of the executions".
Nuno Melo responded to the socialist by pointing out that the €300 million in question is related to "the principle of onerousness of the operational buildings of the Armed Forces that was not settled in 2023 and only arrived in 2024", "€87 million of own revenue from the Military Programming Law, other own revenue" and "a difference between what was executed compared to the forecasts, starting with the GNR and Caixa Geral de Aposentações".
"We're talking about everything that you should have done but didn't and, having failed to do so, unfortunately, resulted in a €300 million difference that we will, unfortunately, have to report to NATO," he said.
Nuno Melo emphasised that the amount involved is "much higher than all the aid to Ukraine decided by this government for 2024, which is €221 million".
The minister made this announcement in response to PSD MP Liliana Reis and after a heated exchange of accusations between the minister and PS MP Luís Dias.
The Socialists accused the government of having presented a budget "based on a lie", refuting the accusation of a lack of investment in defence in recent years.
Luís Dias defended the upward trajectory of Defence budgets, said the previous government had left the current government the largest "surplus" in Portuguese democracy, and criticised the Ministry of Defence for having the second-highest number of retentions.
The socialist also accused Nuno Melo of the ministry's lack of weight in the government and considered that the budget proposal was aimed at "putting the CDS on the PSD's leash".
In response, Nuno Melo accused the PS of managing the budget based on "announcing, spending, and not paying".
"You have done nothing, you have been the biggest disaster in National Defence, I would say, perhaps, in Portuguese democracy," said Melo, who criticised the MP's “audacity”.
Nuno Melo gave as an example a debt of €18 million that had yet to be settled to pay for free transport for former combatants, which the PS "announced were free but didn't put the money in".
"With the PS, Defence was at the bottom of the government's priorities. And if you had a bit of modesty about that, you wouldn't criticise it. (...) Now, to have the nerve to [accuse you of] having done absolutely nothing, to come and criticise those who in seven months have done what you haven't even dreamed of in eight years, frankly, I didn't expect so much from you," he said.
"There can't be a single military man in the country who isn't laughing at you," he added.
Luís Dias insisted that the government is lying about the legacy of the PS: "Minister, with full coffers, permanent staff in the Army and Air Force, with the military programme in place for several years... in the Alentejo we say “with my father's trousers I too am a great man”."
ARL/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
