In his words, this indicator is calculated by adding the funds allocated for national defense in the state budget, the so-called mobility package and the costs of building an access road to the Rudninkai training area, with the latter included in a separate budget line.

On Wednesday, the parliamentary CNSD is set to discuss next year's national defense funding.

If the currently planned funds are approved, Lithuania will be among the top five NATO countries in terms of their GDP share spent on defense.

"We will be in the TOP-3 or TOP-5 of NATO countries in terms of GDP," Kasciunas told BNS.

Due to Lithuania's estimated economic growth and to maintain the existing defense funding at 2.52 percent, an additional 124 million euros will be allocated to national defense next year, bringing total funding to more than 1.77 billion euros.

Lithuania plans to spend 55.7 million euros on the mobility package, i.e. the reception of the German brigade, and also allocate 23 million euros to build an access road to the Rudninkai training area.

"Once we add these amounts together, we would receive an additional 0.113 percent of GDP, so we can say we would allocate a total of 2.63 percent of GDP to defense," Kasciunas told BNS.

This year, the National Defense Ministry will receive a total of 1.647 billion euros in funding, taking the additional 446 million euros allocated during the year into account.

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