The 27 member states of the European Union earmarked 162 billion euros to the defence sector in 2018, 2.6 per cent of their total governmental expenditures, showed data published on Monday by the European Statistical Office (Eurostat).
The figure represents the equivalent of 1.2 per cent of the GDP.
In the EU, the general government expenditures on defence dropped slightly since these statistics were published for the first time in 2001, when they accounted for 1.4 per cent of the GDP.
In 2018, the GDP percentage earmarked for defence in the EU member states varied from 0.3 per cent in Ireland, 0.5 per cent in Luxembourg and Malta, 0.6 per cent in Austria, up to 1.7 per cent in Romania and Lithuania, 1.8 per cent in France, 1.9 per cent in Cyprus, 2 per cent in Estonia and Greece and 2.1 per cent in Latvia. AGERPRES