PRAGUE, Sept 18 (Reuters) – The US told the Czech Republic on Friday that it must spend more on defence to meet required NATO targets.
Prague has failed under successive governments to meet even the minimum NATO threshold of spending 2% of GDP, and will miss the target again this year before just achieving it in 2027.
It has not set a clear path toward NATO’s 3.5% core defence spending target for 2035, plus 1.5% on defence-related infrastructure, agreed at a summit in The Hague in 2025.
“It is disappointing to see that (the Czech Republic) has not made more progress towards meeting the Hague defence commitment,” the US ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, told the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Prague Defence Summit.
“Unfortunately, the Czech Republic is trending towards the bottom of the alliance when it comes to defence spending. It must remain committed to increasing defence spending.
“This has been a message I’ve delivered yesterday and today in person, to our friends here in Czechia.”
He said the US remained committed to NATO and defending allied territory, “but we expect our allies to step up”.
The government of populist prime minister Andrej Babis, who returned to power at the end of 2025, cut defence spending proposed by the outgoing administration for this year to around 1.7-1.8% of GDP, and plans to spend 2% next year.
Babis has argued that the country needs money for building infrastructure and hospitals and thus has only limited resources for defence.
“We inherited an empty cash box and we are giving the maximum possible to defence, and that is 2% and a year-on-year increase of 36 billion crowns ($1.70 billion) (in 2027),” the news agency CTK quoted him as saying on Friday in response to the criticism.
While cutting defence spending this year from the original budget, the government has raised the overall deficit, amid economic growth of around 2%.
Next year, the overall fiscal gap is planned at 3.5% of GDP, up from 2.7% this year and 2.1% in 2025, as the government raises spending in a range of sectors, including defence. ($1 = 21.2260 Czech crowns)
(Reporting by Jan Lopatka; Editing by Toby Chopra and Kevin Liffey)
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