Angela Merkel in a press conference with Donald Trump said that Germany will commit 1,3% of GDP to military spending in 2019. "We have not yet reached the goal but we are getting closer", he added. For his part, Trump reiterated that US allies must increase their financial contribution to NATO, even over 2%. According to what emerged from the German finance ministry, Germany plans to increase defense spending, from the current 36,93 billion euros to 43,87 billion expected for 2022. Compared to the 2% requested from NATO allies, the commitment However, German still remains inadequate, but - confirms the ministry - expenditure is expected to increase to 2019% of GDP in 1,3.
In Italy, 25 is billions of euros, instead, for military spending on 2018, 1,4 per cent of GDP, with an increase of 4 per cent compared to 2017. This is now a growth trend initiated by the Renzi government (with an 8,6 percent more than the 2015) that shows no signs of stopping. In the 2018, in fact, both the Ministry of Defense's budget grows (21 billion, 3,4% more than the 2017) and the contributions of the Ministry of Economic Development for the purchase of new armaments (3,5 billion of which 427 million cost mortgages, or 115% more in the last three legislatures), according to the MIL € X 2018 Report.
The budget of the Ministry of Defense for the year 2018
The traditional analysis of the resources assigned to the Ministry of Defense sees for 2018 allocated a total of 20.968,9 million euros, with a significant increase of 699,8 million compared to last year.
Before going into detail about the "Defense Function", it should be noted that the entries relating to the "External Functions" and the "Temporary Pensions of Auxiliary Staff" show modest deviations with respect to the 2017. In detail, the allocation for the first item is 147,6 million euros; an increase of 6,5 millions of euros due mainly to higher funds for military servants.
This while the other important items such as: water supply, civil air transport of state, flight assistance for civil traffic and meteorology (all still incomprehensibly included in the defense budget), remain substantially unchanged. For the second, which receives 391,4 million, the movement is similar but this time in negative in the sense that they are Xnumx million euro less than last year. In detail then, remember that 5,1 of these millions are related to the Armed Forces personnel, while the remaining 348,6 refer to that of the Carabinieri.
About Carabinieri, it is in the «Security Function of the Territory» that the first "important" movement is recorded; in fact, the resources allocated go from 6.519,8 millions of 2017 to 6.632,8 this year (+ 113 millions). In particular, in the face of personnel expenses almost in line with last year's figures, the positive increases on the operating front (from 345,8 to 409,4 million) and the Investment (even from 28,3 to 97,3) are to be recorded. millions).
As a final note, the data relating to the former Forest Corps component of the State merged into the weapon; for 2018 it is worth 447,7 millions (in significant decrease compared to 491,9 millions of 2017).
The Defense Function
Equally interesting is the analysis of the "Defense Function" proper; also in this case a positive variation is recorded (as anticipated); both from the point of view of quantity and (partly) of quality. It goes from the 13.211,8 million of last year to the current 13.797,2 million: the increase is thus equal to 585,4 millions, equivalent to a + 4,4%.
Values that have not been seen for a long time even if they can not certainly raise the "fate" of a budget that has suffered too long, with particularly heavy interventions starting from the 2014.
Indicative in this sense the historical series of the last decade; although in fact we start from that 2009 that also marked a dramatic decrease in resources compared to the previous year (almost 1,1 billion euros of cut in just one year!), the 2018 still remains below those values.
For a comparison that if already at nominal values is pitiless, when it is transformed into constant values it becomes (as usual) even heavier; the figure of 2018 turns into 12.320,9 millions of euros. With the latter, which gives us back not only a decrease of just over 2 billions of euros but, in the face of the uninterrupted increase in personnel expenses, an erosion even more sensitive on the expenditure items of the year and of the Investment. Erosion only partially alleviated by the possibility of drawing on funds (however limited) of the MEF for missions abroad, in the case of the Year, and those of the MiSE (most important) for the Investment.
In short, it is clear that having pushed the defense budget so low in the last 4 years will represent a "boulder" for a long time to come and any attempt to climb again will be more complex than ever. Moreover, what better confirmation of these considerations than through the analysis of the evolution (or involution) of the percentage ratio of the Defense Function itself with GDP? For this year, this report will settle on 0.779%. Increasing (well) 3 thousandths of a point on the 2017!
Assuming to maintain a similar trend of growth for the future and taking into account the "mythical" 2% target on GDP established in NATO, but also referring to the classification of military expenditure defined in the Atlantic Alliance (wider, much to put our country already today on values equal to little less than 20.800 million, equal to something less than 1,15% of GDP), in practice it would take about 280 years to reach this goal!
A period of time "slightly" higher than the one established at the NATO summit in Wales in the 2014 and which instead set its achievement in the middle of the next decade.
Considering that, on the contrary, there is no shortage of elements that suggest that defense budgets are again the subject of "attention" in terms of containing public spending, it is not at all difficult to foresee from now on that the situation will continue to remain heavy for many years. to come; at best.
Defense function, an analysis by expense chapters
Partially anticipated by the graph on the evolution of the Defense Function of the last 10 years, the analysis of the individual items of expenditure present within the allocation for the Armed Forces is no less important.
It starts from the Personnel, for which there is yet another increase as we move from the 9.799,5 million of the 2017 to 10.072,9 million this year; something like 273,4 million increase, equal to + 2,8%.
Both are increasing, with the "Military Personnel" that absorbs 8.999,7 million (well 241 million more on the 2017) and the "Civil" that reaches 1.073,2 million (plus 61,4 million).
Therefore, the symbolic threshold of the 10 billions of euros has been broken; with a race towards new records that does not yet appear. If, in fact, the provision of the so-called "Reordering of Roles and Careers" launched in 2018, the recent renewal of the contract for the Defense sector will entail a new additional outlay already in this as well as for the years to come.
Attending, among other things, paradoxical situations; as will be remembered, the 244 / 2012 Law on the revision of the Military Instrument had led to the creation of a fund in which the savings due to the reduction of the personnel envisaged by it would flow together.
This fund would then have to redistribute its resources to the expenditure items of the Year and the Investment, in the name of the search for a greater balance in the allocation of allocations.
Sennonché, first for the arrival of the same "Reorganization", then for a provision adopted in the Budget Law 2018 in favor of Civil Defense Personnel, at the end for the next 3 years (if not later) the approximately 100 million saved by the reduction of the same Personnel and destined to merge into the aforesaid fund, in reality they will be "scammed" to cover these needs.
It may be objected that the figure is modest; however, in such a compressed defense budget (think, in particular, of the Year) it is quite clear that such resources would still be important.
Having said that the precise evolution of the organic structure of FFAA will be known more only with the publication of the DPP, the second chapter of expenditure to be addressed is that of the Year.
For 2018, the allocation of 1.418,8 million is recorded; an increase of 147,6 million and that is something like + 11,6%.
To benefit from it are (almost) all the items that compose it.
«Training and Training» passes to 65,7 millions (from 40 of 2017), «Maintenance and Support» rises to 393,9 millions (from 344,8 of last year), «Operating Bodies, Commands and Units» is positioned on 447,4 millions (they were 439,2 in 2017) and, finally, the «Interforces Needs» pass to 282,9 millions (against 212,9).
On the other hand, the "Infrastructures" are suffering, falling to 217,7 millions against 220,8 2017. Certainly better than in the past but, still waiting for the DPP for more information, the path to a return to normal appears very long.
Finally, the Investment. Here too there is a significant increase; 2018 millions of euros are available for 2.305,5, that is 164,4 millions more than last year (+ 7,7%).
Specifically, the chapter on "Modernization and Renewal", which now reaches 2.257,4 million (compared to 2.090,7 of 2017), in particular, where the appropriations for "Research and Development" suffer a slight decrease to 49,4 million (against 50,4 'last year).
Meanwhile, even at the level of allocation of resources among the main expenditure items 3, there are no particular changes. Because if it is true that the Personnel lose part of their weight (always preponderant), the progress recorded by the year and investment can certainly not be considered decisive.
And even if the additional appropriations (MEF and, above all, MiSE) that make it possible to modify the situation, it is clear that that "50 and 50" are intended as a minimum result in terms of allocation of resources (50 Staff and 25 + 25 Exercise with Investment) not only is still far away but, it seems even a chimera.
Between a Law 244 / 2012 that does not work properly (indeed, even if not for their own fault, in the end it records continuous increases in personnel expenses), interventions during various works (mainly cuts), and lack of reform ( that instead promised a general efficiency of the "machine" of the Defense), on the horizon no trace of a true and stable improvement can be glimpsed.
MEF funds for missions abroad and MiSE for investment
We have just mentioned the question of additional resources made available by other Ministries. However, the problem is that (as is known) at present it is not possible to provide a picture of the precise situation; for several reasons. Compared to the issue of MEF funds, the problem stems from the fact that the special fund established at that Ministry was refinanced with the 2018 Budget Law until it reached the size of 995,7 million.
The problem, however, is that already at the beginning of the year the estimate of costs for the entire 2018 for all missions / interventions (military and civil) is equal to 1.504 million. Given this lack of resources, it was decided (as for the past year) to finance everything, except for some sporadic cases for which there is coverage for the whole year, only up to 30 next September.
The possibility of recourse, even if only for partial financial coverage, to resources already registered in the State of Forecast of the Ministry of Defense is therefore very concrete. After all, the same thing happened for the 2017 too, for a final contribution equal to 323 millions of euros, also due to new cuts to the Ministry.
In the meantime, to replenish the 995,7 millions present in the fund, it has already been decided to draw from 17,7 million euro of UN repayments always destined to the Defense Ministry, as consideration for the commitment in missions of this Organization.
Among other things, the final figure on the additional contribution made by MEF for all missions and "military" missions carried out in 2017 (equal to 917,8 million), gives an almost definitive form to that "Integrated Defense Report "Already proposed in the analysis of the 2017-'19 DPP.
The final figure is thus equal to 17.220 million euros; intended as the sum of the Defense Function, MEF funds (including the military aid component abroad), MiSE funds (as per DPP), and Carabinieri in the Defense Function (using the generous, estimates provided by the MinDife).
Adopting the same criteria, the comparison with previous years confirms that 2017 itself was one of the worst in absolute terms in terms of the overall resources available to the Defense / FFAA sector; in this, only beaten by 2015.
Different reasoning regarding the (fundamental) contribution of the MiSE. Here the data are not lacking, as included in its own Forecasting State. The problem consists, as always, in their "decryption".
In fact, 7419 millions of euros are allocated to the 7420, 7421, 7485, 7491 and 3.111,3 chapters; at the same time, however, the chapters 5311 ÷ 5313 and 9706 ÷ 9708 provide information on the annual installments of mortgage amortization for several programs, for a total of well 427,4 million.
To make it even more difficult to understand the real volume of resources available, the often complex nature of such funding (think, for example, the annual commitment limits) and the verification of what is actually being shot at the Ministry of Defense for payments .
In short, only the figures provided by the DPP will be able to clarify the situation; at the present time, however, there are no signs that allow to be infected by euphoria compared to particularly significant levels of resources.
Of course, the increase in appropriations in the defense budget and a possible (albeit modest) increase in resources coming from the MiSE should make it possible to easily exceed what was available last year (4.687 million, as a sum of 2.141,1 million from Defense and 2.546 from MiSE itself); but without striking shifts.
Also because, the same loans guaranteed by the so-called "founding" (established by the 2017 Budget Law, article 140, paragraph 1), although they are beginning to show their effects in the end do not go but to often cover the needs of programs investment that otherwise could not have been met (as in the case of FREMM).
Defense Balance Analysis by Defense Analysis.