Norway will further increase defense spending after a historic allocation last month

Norway’s center-left government said Thursday it wants to add 7 billion kroner ($630 million) to the Scandinavian country’s armed forces over the next 12 years, amid increased tensions in the region.

The announcement came on top of plans announced last month for a “historic increase” in the oil-rich country’s defense budget by 600 billion kroner ($54 billion) over the same period.

“We need to increase the operational capacity of the armed forces,” said Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, citing heightened tensions in the region as the reason for the boost.

Gahr Store said on Thursday that the combined budget increase meant Norway would be able to reach NATO’s military spending target of 2 percent of each member state’s GDP this year.

By 2024, the Scandinavian country’s defense budget is expected to rise to 104 billion kroner ($9.4 billion).

Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum called it “strong growth” and said it was “a necessary investment to strengthen our freedom.”

Gahr Store leads a coalition consisting of his own social democratic Labor Party and the left-wing Center Party. He is expected to win support for the proposal in the 169-seat Storting Assembly. No date for a vote was set.

On Tuesday, party leaders announced in the Norwegian parliament that the Scandinavian country will donate 7 billion kroner to Ukraine as part of a five-year aid package. That is on top of the 75 billion kroner ($6.8 billion) that Norway has already said it will donate, making the country one of the world’s largest donors to war-torn Ukraine.

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