A report published in April by the Washington-based [sic] think thank, Transnational Institute, “Guns, Debt and Corruption: Military Spending and the E.U. Crisis“, argued that high levels of European military spending played a key role in the unfolding E.U. debt crisis and continues to undermine efforts to resolve it. “Greece has been Europe’s biggest spender in relative terms for most of the past four decades, spending almost twice as much of its GDP on defense as the E.U. average. Spain’s military expenditure increased 29% between 2000 and 2008, due to massive weapon purchases,” reads the report. Some old soldiers never die, even if in France, at least, they do get laid off.

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