The Belgian coalition government agreed to increase by 3.9 billion euros the expense in defense of this year to reach the OTAN target of dedicating 2% of its GDP to this sector, announced the Minister of Defense, Theo Franken. “Belgium went from being the founding father of NATO to the worst student of the class. This is already done. Today we finally fulfill that 2%promise. It is the greatest investment in defense in 40 years,” said the Minister of Defense on Social Networks.
Franken announced the presentation of a strategic plan with specific investments in defense, as well as the creation of a strategic defense fund by the Minister of Finance, Jan Jambon, before July 1. The fund will be financed with the dividends of public companies and will be used to invest in the Belgian defense and security industry, the minister explained.
In this sense, the Belgian minister also announced that he intends to buy more F-35 aircraft, but he wants these fighters to be manufactured in Italy, not in the United States, as published by the media . “I asked the Italian Defense Minister if we could produce additional F-35 in Italy instead of in the United States. This would also create jobs in Europe. We should also talk about additional financial compensation and jobs for Belgian companies,” he explained.
The current geopolitical context and the growing distancing between the United States and European countries has led to the allied powers of Ukraine in the Russian war to try to diversify the purchase of its military arsenal, including the F-35A Lightning II of American manufacturing. Countries such as Canada or Portugal have back in the purchase of these airplanes to the US, stating that they will look for other alternatives.
The distrust of these fighters has increased in recent months. The United States has not imposed any restriction on the use of these devices, but the Department of Defense points out that the US could restrict access to encryption keys, which would increase the complexity of operations.
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