Greece to ask EU for fiscal flexibility on defense spending
ATHENS
Greece plans to request an exemption from the European Union’s budget rules for its 2026 defense spending under the fiscal escape clause, the country’s finance minister announced on April 29.
Speaking to public broadcaster ERT News, Kyriakos Pierrakakis said Athens will be asking to exempt some 500 million euros ($569.6 million) in earmarked defense spending.
“The planned increase from 2025 to 2026 is approximately half 1 billion euros, which has been planned, and this also concerns the following years. There is a very specific defense spending program that we have presented as a government,” he said.
Excluding this spending from the budget would create more space for expenses for other domains, including development and social cohesion, he added.
Greece recently announced Agenda 2030, under which the armed forces will go through an extensive restructuring, with some 25 billion euros spent on armaments for the next 10 years, including new warships, armored vehicles, military cargo planes, various type of rockets and missiles systems and strengthening of air-defense capabilities against drones and ballistic missiles.
“The plan involves the most drastic transformation of the armed forces in the country’s modern history,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told the parliament this month.
“The world is changing at an unforeseeable pace.”
Athens also recently announced its plans to build a 150,000-strong active reservist force by 2030, as part of its sweeping modernization to strengthen its national defense.
