Britain Has Second Largest Budget in NATO - UK Defense Secretary

UK Defense Secretary said Britain has the second defense budget in NATO, outstripped only by the United States, a country with a larger annual military budget than all the EU members combined.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The UK government will maintain their Armed Forces budget, at just over $50 billion a year, remaining the largest military spender in the European Union, British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon has said.

"They [the UK Armed Forces] help support our interests and values across the world. In turn, we will make sure that they have the resources they need," Fallon wrote in an article, published by the Telegraph on Monday.

The UK government also plans to annually increase their spending on defense equipment by 1 percent, after pledging to spend over $240 billion on new equipment over the next decade, according to Fallon.

Fallon also said that the United Kingdom will spend 2 percent of the country's GDP on defense in 2015 and 2016.

Fallon singled out the Islamic State militant group, operating in Syria and Iraq, Nigeria-based Boko Haram group and Russia's alleged interference into Ukraine's internal affairs as the biggest threats to the West.

Nearly 150,000 trained personnel are serving in the UK Armed Forces, according to latest report, published by the UK Ministry of Defense, earlier this month.