EU: Almost one - third of EU GDP spent on social protection

Since 2010 social protection expenditure in the European Union (EU) has increased slightly.

From 28.6% of GDP in 2010 to 29.0 % in 2015 according to data from the Eurostat the Statistical office of the EU.

In 2015, the EU's 28 Member States earmarked €200 billion of public expenditure for 'defence'. This is equivalent to only 1.4% of GDP.

By contrast, Washington's military expenditure "only" amounts to 3.5 percent of GDP, which is often questioned because no exact dollar figure is ever given In China, that falls to 2.1 percent. Israel spent around $23 billion on its armed forces in 2014 and SIPRI estimated that this amounted to 5.2 percent of its GDP

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