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Albania is expected to spend hundreds of millions of euros more on defense in the coming years, while the time during which the country could save from this sector to invest in economic and social development seems to have ended. The plans for military expenditures of the draft state budget 2024, published on the website of the Parliament of Albania, speak of a substantial increase in expenditures for military bases, armaments and ammunition as well as the purchase of expensive air warfare systems, drones from Turkey and a transponder system worth over 30 million euros that will apparently be installed on Blackhawk helicopters.
A modest military base in the area of Biza in the highlands of Tirana is expected to turn into a complex worth almost 15 million euros, while the naval base of Pashaliman is expected to be invested in the construction of jetties and deepening of the basin worth approximately 5 million euros.
The new investments planned in this year's budget ceilings come alongside the existing investment program, which includes the purchase of unmanned aircraft worth 75 million euros, a program that started in 2022 or the construction of a training ground in Pajet worth over 2 million euros.
In total, the defense investment program for the period 2022-2028 amounts to almost 800 million euros.
For the year 2024, Albania is expected to spend on the defense sector 33 billion ALL (about 310 million euros), with a significant increase of 27% compared to the 2023 budget. The increase in defense spending is significant considering that the overall budget spending are expected to grow by only 7.1%.
However, despite the significant increase, defense spending continues to remain significantly below the standard of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO), in which Albania has been a member since 2009. The sum of 33 billion ALL planned to spent in 2024 constitute only 1.35% of Albania's Gross Domestic Product, from the 2% of GDP that Albania and other member countries agreed to spend on defense in 2006.
In fact, Albania has never met this minimum quota in its history, while defense spending during the last decade has been very low as a percentage of GDP. In order for Albania to meet the minimum quota of 2% of GDP, defense spending would have to be nearly ALL 49 billion.
According to NATO data, Poland, the United States and Greece are among the NATO member states that maintain defense spending higher than 3% of Gross Domestic Product, of which the United States and Greece have maintained such high spending quotas for many years, while Poland has increased spending dramatically over the past two years, particularly as a result of Russia's attack on Ukraine.
Albania has a small army of 6,600 personnel, the fifth smallest among member states after Luxembourg, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Slovenia, not counting Iceland, the only NATO member that does not there is an army.
The United States with 1.34 million troops and Turkey with 461,000 are the member countries with the largest armies.
NATO's calculations show that according to the data of 2023, Albania is the member country with the lowest spending per capita in the defense sector. Protection this year costs Albanian citizens 93 USD, while in North Macedonia it costs 114 USD and in Montenegro, 151 USD. Protection costs Americans $2,220 a year, while Norwegians $1,339. Big countries like Germany or France have been criticized for years for low expenses. A German citizen's protection costs $677 a year, while a French citizen costs $737.
Defense spending has begun to change radically in many countries since Russia's attack against Ukraine in 2022, an event that changed the perception of peace, at least in terms of conventional warfare on the European continent. /BIRN
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