Denmark is purchasing €7.7 billion worth of Europe-made ground-based air and missile systems in the “largest defence investment in Danish history”, the country’s defence minister Troels Lund Poulsen said on Friday morning.
Denmark will procure eight systems, including Franco-Italian SAMP/T long-range systems. For its medium-range options, the government will also decide between one or more systems from NASAMS, made by Norway’s Kongsberg in partnership with Raytheon, Germany’s IRIS-T, and the French produced VL MICA, the press release reads.
The announcement comes after Poland downed “hostile objects” violating Polish airspace during a Russian assault on Ukraine. The unprecedented Russian incursion into Polish airspace led Warsaw to trigger Article 4 of the NATO treaty.
“Experience from Ukraine shows that ground-based air defence plays a crucial role in protecting, among other things, the civilian population against Russian attacks from the air,” Lund Poulsen said.
Denmark is already among Europe’s top defence spenders by percentage of GDP, with 2.37% in 2024 according to the alliance’s estimates.
But the continuing war in Ukraine, increasing issues on the EU’s eastern border, and NATO leaders’ commitment to boost their hard military expenditure to 3.5% of GDP by 2035 has led Denmark to expand its defence arsenal.
Political parties across the board, from the Radical Left to the nationalist Danish People’s party, welcomed the government’s acquisitions.
“For far too many years we have been without a proper air defence, and this is an unsustainable situation. (…) It has been crucial for us that we meet the expectations that NATO has for us quickly, and that we have an air defence that can protect us against foreign powers,” defence spokesperson for the right-wing Danish Democrats, Lise Bech, said on Monday.
The first ground-based air defence system will be operational this year, the statement reads, with the remaining equipment to be gradually come on stream.
CORRECTION: This article has been updated to give the correct total in euros of the Danish investment – €7.71 billion (DKK 58 billion)
(cp, jp)
