Although NATO's 2014 pledge for members to spend 2% of GDP on defence has been in place for years, several countries have failed to meet it including Italy, which reached only 1.49% in 2024.
Moreover, Italy initially did not plan to meet the target in 2025 either, budgeting €30.5 billion for defence, equivalent to about 1.5% of GDP. Yet in its report to NATO, Italy suddenly stated it will spend exactly 2%.
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No public announcement of a larger defence budget was made by the government. Instead, a published Defence Ministry plan for force development covering 2025–2027, with associated financial figures, revealed how Italy achieved the increase.
Under NATO accounting rules, Italy's 2025 defence budget is reported as €45.315 billion more than €15 billion higher than previously stated, which accounts for the extra 0.5% of GDP and brings the total to 2%.
But only part of those expenditures is itemised in detail, and that portion was mostly already known. That detailed slice totals €31.298 billion, only about €2.1 billion more than in 2024. To boost the headline figure to NATO's 2% target, the Defence Ministry included spending on the Carabinieri, who perform law-enforcement functions.
Another €14.017 billion is tucked into two broad items: military mobility, with no specification of what it covers, and cybersecurity, which likely accounts for only a small fraction of that sum. These steps are documented by the Italian outlet Geopolitica.
From Defense Express's perspective, the question of whether Italy's armed forces will fight with accounting entries in a crisis can be set aside; more important is NATO's own breakdown of member spending for 2025. According to that report, Italy's budget composition is: 42.8% personnel costs, 29.6% operations, 25.7% procurement and development, and only 1.9% for infrastructure.
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