A year ago, I, with all modesty, published a short text on the European unpreparedness that the war in Ukraine came to expose.
I have never had a particular admiration for President Trump, who incidentally had one of the worst relations with his European partners in living memory. However, I agreed when he rebelled against the free-rider countries of NATO, which enjoyed American security but did not pay the bill.
Furthermore, Germany, even during the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel, had an obligation to do so and consistently failed to fulfill the commitments assumed at the Summit in Wales, in which NATO members had a minimum of 2% of GDP in defense.
The 2021 annual report reveals that last year, the only countries that complied with the agreement were Greece (3.59% of Gross Domestic Product in defense sector expenditure), the United States (3.57%), Poland (2.34%), the United Kingdom ( 2.25%), Croatia (2.16%) and the three Baltic countries, Estonia (2.16%), Latvia (2.16%) and Lithuania (2.03%), have already surpassed the 2% threshold agreed between the allies in 2014, with the United States accounting for 51% of the allies' combined GDP.
As a year before, Portugal appears in 17th place in the table, with 1.55% of its GDP devoted to defense, still ahead of countries such as Italy (1.54%) and Germany (1.49%), and well above Spain, which occupies the penultimate place, with only 1.03%, which for me is extraordinary.
Furthermore, when Germany "arrogated" to itself the role of "EU leader," at the very least, it had an obligation to fulfill the commitments assumed with other Member States.
NB: There is more to life than financial accounts... one may ask anyone living in Kyiv these days!
Following the commitments assumed at the Wales Summit, the requirement that NATO members use 2% of GDP on defense is earlier.
Furthermore, although the leader of the CDU, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, perhaps because she was raised and educated in East Germany and spoke Russian (?), always maintained a German (and therefore European) dependence on Russian gas, which today a fatal judgment error has been demonstrated!
After all, it's not just the Portuguese who have the "Sebastian Myth"... apparently, other European peoples also hope that one day, on a foggy morning, someone will come back to save the country from all its problems.
Plus, I confess I could have been a better student. But, in the first year of my law course, I learned a maxim in Latin: "Pacta Sunt Servanda."
