Italian soldiers conduct convoy operations during Saber Junction 25 at the Hohenfels Training Area, Joint Multinational Readiness Center (JMRC), Germany, Sept. 10, 2025. Fewer Europeans support higher national defense spending, but the downtick is being driven largely by Italy, according to a report this week by Belgian media network Euractiv. (Christian Aquino/U.S. Army)
Europeans are less inclined to support defense spending increases than they were a year and a half ago, according to a new survey taken shortly after NATO’s historic shootdown of a Russian drone swarm in Poland.
But with 67% of respondents backing bigger defense budgets, the poll shows that residents on the Continent are still largely on board with the repeated calls for alliance members to spend more on their militaries.
In addition, the downtick from the 74% support recorded by research firm Polling Europe in April 2024 was driven largely by Italy, whose defense budget has consistently ranked among the lowest of Europe’s major powers.
The results of the new survey were shared in a report this week by Euractiv, a Brussels-based media network that specializes in European Union affairs.
The research firm Polling Europe collected 5,400 survey responses from Sept. 17-19, days after Poland said about 20 Russian drones had entered its airspace.
NATO scrambled fighter jets, resulting in the first-ever shootdown by the bloc of an aerial threat over allied territory.
NATO countries’ flags fly at alliance headquarters in Brussels. A report this week from Euractiv, a Brussels-based media company, says fewer Europeans support higher national defense spending, down 7% from an April 2024 survey. (NATO)
The response to the question “should EU member states invest more” in defense showed a stark line between southern Europe and the rest of the Continent, according to Euractiv.
In the former, 59% of respondents said they support higher defense budgets, compared with 76% in central and Eastern Europe, and 73% in the north.
Poland, which shares a border with Russia, had the highest level of support for increased military spending at 86%.
In Italy, only 48% of respondents said they supported an increase in defense spending, Euractiv said, citing the survey results.
That figure is markedly low even for southern Europe. In Spain, for example, the level of support for raising military spending was a full 20 percentage points higher, at 68%.
In 2024, both countries ranked near the bottom in defense spending among NATO countries: Italy at 1.50% and Spain in last at 1.24%, according to NATO. Poland was at the top at 4.07%.
The Italian government faces a difficult tradeoff between military and welfare spending, Carlo Bastasin, a nonresident foreign policy senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote last month.
“Not only is the former unpopular, but the latter may be important to keep the country together, consolidate a consensus of public support for the government, and ensure political stability during turbulent international crises,” Bastasin said.
The survey was conducted on behalf of Euractiv to gauge support for defense spending amid the Russia-Ukraine war and the June elevation of NATO’s threshold for such expenditures from 2% of gross domestic product to 5%.
All 32 of the alliance’s member countries were on track for the 2% mark in 2025, according to NATO.
