Why Italy’s defence spending lags far behind

The mood when Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, met Donald Trump on April 17th could not have been sweeter. Mr Trump’s guest was “a great prime minister” doing “a fantastic job”. He was even “very proud to be with her”. When Ms Meloni slipped into MAGA-speak to suggest she and the president could “make the West great again”, he assented.

But the actual results of their love-in could be counted on three fingers. Mr Trump accepted an invitation to pay an official visit to Rome (but merely agreed to consider Ms Meloni’s suggestion that he meet a representative of the EU while there). Ms Meloni said that Italian companies were ready to invest €10bn ($11.4bn) in America. And she revealed that, at the next NATO summit, she would announce that Italy was raising its defence spending to 2% of GDP (but without specifying when).

Her disclosure is unlikely to stir much jubilation on either side of the Atlantic. NATO is already aiming at 3% as its new target for defence spending. Mr Trump would like the goal to be 5%. In 2024 Italy is estimated to have devoted only 1.49% of its GDP to defence, the third-lowest share among major NATO economies. Only Spain (1.28%) and Canada (1.37%) are reckoned to have spent less.

But Italy’s outlay has nevertheless gone up sharply. In 2015, it was just 1.07% of GDP. The figure began to rise under the centre-left governments of Matteo Renzi and Paolo Gentiloni and peaked at 1.59% in 2020.

For years, Italy lobbied Brussels for military spending to be excluded from the calculation of its budget deficit, capped at 3% of GDP under the EU’s growth and stability pact. Now it could get its way: the commission’s plan for rearmament includes a provision for member states to spend an extra 1.5% of GDP on defence, without incurring the censure of Brussels, by tapping into cheap borrowing underwritten by the EU. “There is no longer an alibi,” says Alessandro Marrone, who leads the defence research programme at the Istituto Affari Internazionali, a think-tank.

Yet getting the extra cash is fraught with risk for Ms Meloni. Cheap it may be. But it would still add to Italy’s already burdensome public debt of more than 135% of GDP, increasing the danger of its falling prey to a bond-market crisis. Moreover, the commission’s budgetary leeway is only being granted initially for four years. “The problem is what happens then, if the 3% deficit limit is reimposed,” says Pietro Batacchi, who edits Rivista Italiana Difesa. “Do you raise taxes or cut services?” Nor are the difficulties solely financial. Despite Mussolini’s Fascists, Italy has a longer tradition of pacificism, with roots deep in a history of near-incessant invasion and a culture heavily influenced by Catholic strictures on the use of violence.

There are also several reasons why Italians have a greater sympathy for Russia than many other Europeans. Italy had western Europe’s biggest Communist party during the cold war. Russia was an important trading partner before Europe imposed sanctions after the invasion of Ukraine. And the Kremlin has enjoyed considerable success in penetrating Italy with its propaganda. Moreover, Russia and Ukraine seem far away to most Italians, even though Kyiv is barely more distant from Rome than is London.

The confusion shows up in the polls. One last month found almost two-thirds of those questioned feared the war could spread. Yet 48% were in favour of ending military aid for Ukraine, against 38% who supported it. Asked about raising Italy’s defence spending even to 2% of GDP, more were against than for. The margin was small, however: 43% to 42%, with fully 15% expressing no opinion. So the coalition government has scope for swaying public opinion—or might have, were it not split over rearmament.

When the European Parliament debated the issue last month, Ms Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party and the centre-right Forza Italia movement backed the commission’s plans, whereas the hard-right League, the third member of her three-party coalition, voted against them. “If there were a European army today, France and Germany would already have sent us to war,” argues the League’s leader, Matteo Salvini. He has been joined in opposition to rearmament by Giuseppe Conte of the Five Star Movement, who has transformed his party into a radical left-wing outfit since taking over as leader in 2021. This is ironic since, when Mr Conte was prime minister, from 2018 to 2021, Italy’s defence spending increased by more than a quarter. But then Mr Conte, like Mr Salvini, leads a party that has haemorrhaged support. And they both know a vote-catching issue when they see one. ■

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