In 2023, the EU countries’ general government expenditure on defence amounted to €227 billion, representing 2.7% of total general government expenditure. This is equivalent to 1.3% of GDP.
At EU level, the share of defence expenditure in total expenditure decreased from 3.0% in 1995 to 2.7% in 2023. However, compared with 2021 and 2022, this share increased from 2.4% of total expenditure in 2021 to 2.5% of total expenditure in 2022 and 2.7% of total expenditure in 2023.
This information comes from data on general government expenditure by function (COFOG) published by Eurostat.
Source dataset: gov_10a_exp
In 2023, the highest levels of total expenditure on defence among EU countries were observed in Latvia (3.1% of GDP), Estonia (2.7% of GDP), Lithuania (2.5% of GDP), Greece (2.2% of GDP), Poland (2.1% of GDP), Cyprus and Hungary (both 1.9% of GDP) as well as France, Denmark and Sweden (for each 1.8% of GDP).
By contrast, Ireland (0.2% of GDP), Malta (0.4% of GDP), Luxembourg and Austria (both 0.6% of GDP) had comparatively low government expenditure on defence in the EU.
Source: Eurostat, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/product?code=ddn-20250327-1
