Explaining Hungarian Defence Spending Trends, 2004–2019
Abstract :
Defence has become a central issue of strategic discourse among NATO’s Central
European member states after 2014, following the Russian aggression against
Ukraine. Reinforcing capabilities and readiness within the framework of collective
defence requires much from these countries in terms of strategic thinking, capability
planning, defence procurement and modernisation – and as a central element to
realising their aims, in terms of funds for defence. U.S. President Donald Trump’s
sustained criticism calling for ‘more fair’ burden sharing among member states,
resulting in the adoption of the Wales Declaration on the Transatlantic Bond1
(Defence Pledge), further incentivised member states’ willingness to dynamise their
efforts. Since then, many European countries – some significantly – have increased
their defence budgets and other forms of contribution. This paper offers an overview
and analysis of Hungarian defence spending trends since the country’s accession
to the European Union in 2004,2 as this can highlight what has been achieved in
this specific ‘enabling’ field in the past couple of years to counterbalance the trend
of underfinancing prevalent for a decade. The author argues that the increased
attention and resources dedicated to defence and the significant modernisation
drive are part of an overarching normalisation process taking place in Hungary. Four
indicative scenarios are developed in the paper based on the GDP growth trends and
planned continuous increase of the defence budget, showing that independent of the
(forecasted) GDP growth rate, the 2% target in terms of GDP would only be met in
case of a more intensive, 0.2% annual increase scenario.