The secretary-general of the organisation, Jens Stoltenberg, announced the new data, which revealed that, in proportional terms, Portugal remains the 16th member that most invests in defence, immediately ahead of Germany (1.36%), and ahead of Belgium (0.93%), Spain (0.92%) and Luxembourg (0.55%), the allies in the bottom of the list.

At this time, and according to the estimates, only seven countries have already reached or exceeded the 2% bar, the goal agreed by the allies at the Welsh Summit in 2014: United States (3.42%), Greece (2.24%), Estonia (2.13%), United Kingdom (2.13%) and Romania (2.04%).

Overall, the 29 allies must allocate this year 1.55% of their wealth to defence expenses, four more decimal points compared to 2018 (1.51%), and this year was the fifth consecutive year of increase, but still far from the goal that the alliance expects to achieve within five years.

According to NATO estimates, in gross terms, this year Portugal should spend €2.9 billion in defence, €200 million more than last year (€2.7 billion, which represented 1.35% of GDP).