Belgium has warned it may resort to creative accounting in order to meet defence spending commitments. The small country is one of just seven European NATO members out of 30 still not meeting the 2% GDP spending targets, despite promising to do so at the Wales NATO summit in 2014. Buffeted by mounting pressures from Russia on one side, and US President Donald Trump on the other – who is demanding that alliance members boost defence spending – it made the pledge again last week, and has said it will spend €3.8 billion (£3.25 billion) on defence this year.

Like many European nations, Belgium is still in debt following the global pandemic, and last year, its deficit was projected to reach 4.6% and its debt burden 103.4%. There are already fears that this will force the government to eat away at welfare programmes. “Every euro that’s a deficit today … is a euro that will be debt, and that debt will one day a tax or a cut and in the social welfare state,” Belgium’s Budget Minister Vincent Van Peteghem told the FT.

“Defence definitely requires our full attention, but so does also the sustainability of our welfare state.”

So the minister has confirmed that the country will make use of two offers in order to help achieve this, both of which will see the country increase its debt.

One will take advantage of a current plan to exempt defence spending from strict EU debt caps, which traditionally prohibit countries with more than a 60% debt burden from borrowing more.

The other will take up its share of a £150 billion European Commission contingency fund.

But the spending plan may still not yield much to the alliance’s overall military capability, because Belgium hopes to rely on creative accounting to make up for a third of it.

Traditionally, NATO rules gave members complete freedom to define what they classified as defence spending – with pensions for veterans being one classic example.

Recently, NATO tightened this up, and now insists that at least 20% of the defence expenditure should be devoted to major new equipment. This includes associated research and development, perceived as a crucial indicator for the scale and pace of modernisation.

The minister ​said that Belgium will ask NATO to classify €125m (£108m) of regional investments in roads and bridges – vital to the so-called “battle map” of troop movements through Europe to the East – as military expenditure.

He also said Belgium would attempt to list as defence spending the €1.2 billion (£1 billion) in national taxes scooped up from the profits of Russian state assets frozen in the country, which are being donated to Ukraine.

Combined, this equates to around a third of this year’s commitment.

Last night one Whitehall source said: “Alliance members have traditionally tended to define what is meant as defence spending in their own, convenient way. Remember that even the UK has been guilty of this when, in 2014, we started to include things like war pensions and pensions of MoD civil servants.

“But wh​en the UK also lends Ukraine moneys taken from the interest accrued from frozen Russian assets​ here, we do not go ​so far as to count this as defen​ce ​spending​.

“It is a​ frankly egregious​ idea​, and unhelpful to increasing the alliance’s overall posture.”