OREANDA-NEWS. Defense spending in European countries increased by 5.6 percent in 2020. This was announced on Tuesday, January 26, by «RBC» with reference to the report of the agency «Janes», which specializes in the analysis of open data in the defense sector.

Worldwide, defense spending increased by 1.9 percent last year, from $1.8 trillion in 2019 to $1.93 trillion. The agency's experts predict, that this year, the growth of defense spending as a whole will slow down due to the consequences of the pandemic.

According to «Janes» lead analyst Andrew McDonald, all regions except Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America are likely to make a real reduction in 2021. Because of this, the overall growth of defense spending will fall to the lowest level since 2013.

According to the publication, we are talking about an indicator of $1.53 trillion. Even more spending cuts due to the effects of the pandemic will be observed in 2022, and after the crisis years, the growth of defense spending will accelerate again, according to the authors of the report.

Meanwhile, according to NATO, the military spending of the European members of the alliance in 2020 increased by 4.3 percent compared to the level of 2019. In October 2020, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg indicated that the defense spending of these countries has increased for the sixth year in a row.