Once 2% of GDP is allocated to Defence, this will become the basis from then on

The Portuguese Minister of Defence Helena Carreiras claims the country aims to reach 2% of GDP in defence expenditure by 2030. 

 In a statement to Lusa Press Agency, the Minister clarified that "once we reach this target of 2%, it will become the basis from which to expand, rather than the ceiling".

Regarding the recent meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, presided over by the Prime Minister António Costa, and also attended by the Minister of Foreign Affairs João Gomes Cravinho, the Minister said "several matters pertaining to preparing the upcoming Vilnius" summit in Lithuania were discussed, among which "strengthening our contribution to the Alliance", "not just financially", but also "reforming the system of forces, the NATO presence in the Eastern flank".

Helena Carreiras stressed that "budget expenditure and investment in defence has grown".

Earlier, the Minister had claimed "up to now, the Defence Ministry has coordinated the delivery of more than 712 tonnes of material to Ukraine, mostly military." She also explained that "the shipment of approximately 270 tonnes of additional material, including ammunitions and vehicles, bringing the total up to more than 850 tonnes is imminent."

Africa

Helena Carreiras also remarked that one of Portugal’s strategic priorities for defence is security in Africa, due to the "proliferation of transnational terrorism and the intensifying of humanitarian crises and conflicts, in some cases linked to piracy", and which "represent other risks we must address also".

For the Minister of National Defence, "this explosive mixture occurs particularly in the Gulf of Guinea and Western Africa" and Portugal ensures "an active participation through the EU Coordinated Maritime Presence, in close connection with the Open Sea initiative, yet also through several bilateral and multilateral missions, operations, and capacity building projects on sea and land".

Technology and Defence

A new strategy "for the Defence technological and industrial base" was recently approved, with scheduled measures. On this, the Minister declared that "the emergence of disruptive technologies and the growing importance of domains such as cyber or space, as well as the need to protect critical infrastructure such as data transmission cables demands this of us".

EU Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO)

As for PESCO projects in the field of technologies, Helena Carreiras informed that the "Cyber Academy and Innovation Hub" will be presented publicly shortly. It aims at fostering cooperation between public and private sector entities for training, exercises, support to research, development, and innovation, as well as industrial development" in the fields of cyber security and cyber defence.