Defence Minister Nuno Melo told Luce on Friday that the government “will invest more in the Armed Forces” and that its priority is to “improve the recruitment and retention conditions” of military personnel by offering “higher salaries”.
“I have no doubt that very little investment has been made in the Armed Forces in recent years. And as Minister of Defence, my task from day one has been to invest much more, (…) we must improve recruitment and retention conditions, and this requires better paid and better paid soldiers,” said Nuno Melo, during a visit to the second Artex event organised by the Portuguese Army, at the Santa Margarida military camp in Constancia, in the Santarém region.
The minister stressed the importance of channelling resources into the Armed Forces and improving the living conditions of soldiers, increasing salaries and recognising the “specificity of martial law”.
The minister believes that the attractiveness of a military career depends not only on higher salaries, but also on “additional pay, housing, compatibility of military and family life, as well as the opportunity to invest in better equipment.”
“This is the only way to guarantee a worthy military career,” the minister said.
Nuno Melo also reiterated the goal of achieving 2% of GDP in national defence by 2029, noting that this goal will have to be achieved in stages so as not to “jeopardise public finances”.
“We must get closer to NATO commitments, and this means investing 2% of GDP in the defense sector. The target was set and announced by the Prime Minister. By 2029, we will have this minimum amount, and this commitment will be implemented in stages, taking into account budgetary possibilities,” he explained.
The Minister also stated that the political dimension must respond to the main problems affecting the Armed Forces, especially the issue of human resources, noting that the Ministry of Defence, together with the army, has already identified the main gaps in this sector and that “now is the time to achieve results.”
The minister also warned that investing in the Armed Forces is a long-term process, noting that it is impossible to move from a context of “chronic disinvestment over many years” to a context of “total investment in a country that does not have unlimited resources.”
The Minister attended the Army Technological Experimentation (Artex) exercise, an initiative aimed at the business, technological and academic structure with the aim of modernising the Portuguese Army.
According to the army, the event is aimed, among other things, at expanding “research and development activities of state and private enterprises of the National Science and Technology System and the defense technology and industrial base.”
In her speech introducing the initiative, Major General Maia Pereira explained that the event represented “the future of the Portuguese Army” and called on research centres, industry and universities to see defence “as an opportunity to modernise the country”.
According to Maya Pereira, the initiative creates a “culture of partnership and planning” to “prepare the army for the future.”
Artex 2024 also aims to promote ground force development, knowledge sharing and battlefield control.
It was also announced that the army currently has more than 100 projects and sub-projects that will enable it to modernize the army in several areas, namely heavy, medium and light forces, ground transport, special operations, military reserves and others.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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