He did not mention any amount -the catalog price of an F -35 built by the American group Lockheed Martin is around 80 million dollars -with the exception of that of his “ammunition reading plan 2025”, an initial investment of 2.3 billion euros this year. This amount is included in the 4 billion planned to reach 2% of the GDP devoted to defense at the end of 2025.
This plan gives priority to the rapid order of types of critical ammunition, in particular for new weapons systems that have already been ordered or delivered. “Indeed, the delivery times of these ammunition can go up to seven years, which requires rapid action”, justified Theo Francken (N-VA) in a press release.
This ammunition order will carry the stocks of the Belgian army to fifteen days of combat, where NATO requests thirty.
Overall, with this new strategic vision, defense expenses in the broad sense will seriously grow: from 13 billion euros next year to 21 billion in 2034.
And the department’s budget will drop from 10.8 billion euros to 18.2 billion. In Euros currents, this will represent 136 billion spending, including 50 billion for staff. In terms of enrollment, the Belgian army will go from 26,200 soldiers, 2,300 civilians and 2,500 reservists in early 2025 to 40,000 soldiers in 2040 to implement new weapons systems.