Bulgaria's Ranks Average in Military Expenditure within NATO

Bulgaria spends far more on defense as a share of its GDP compared to Germany, Italy, and Canada, NATO data shows.

A CNN Money report, which includes Alliance data about military expenditures, cites NATO statistics according to which Bulgaria, with spending at 1.20% of GDP, ranks 12th out of 28 member states.

It is still far behind the 2% target adopted in 2014.

The US spent some USD 650 B on defense last year, "far more" than "any other nation on the planet".

This is also valid in terms of GDP percentage within NATO: while Washington allocates 3.62% of the national budget to military expenditure, second in the list comes Greece, with 2.46%.

Together with the US and Greece, only Poland, Estonia and the UK meet the target of a defense budget amounting to at least 2% of GDP - a commitment taken at NATO's 2014 Summit in Wales.

A total of eight countries (the Czech Republic, Italy, Slovenia, Belgium, Spain, Hungary, Luxembourg, and Iceland) have a military expenditure below one percent.

After the Wales Summit, Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev said his country would be committed to boosting its defense-budget-to-GDP ratio to 2% in a matter of years, a process that was called into question by Prime Minister Boyko Borisov as he took over after the snap election in the autumn of that year.