>>513534277The agreed on requirement was that nations below 2% don't further decrease defense spending.
Some of the nations below 2% had additionally voluntarily pledged to reach 2% by, say, 2024.
2% itself was a guideline with no requirement to meet it within any specific amount of time, in fact it's very overtly clear that most members who hadn't pledged to voluntarily meet it by 2024 almost certainly weren't going to meet it by then and that was ok by NATO consensus.
Yes, the big Russian invasion did cause stricter policies; those 3.5% (+1.5% in some other defense-adjacent categories) and meeting capabilities by 2035 are now a requirement that NATO actually agreed on.