NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte
NATO’s new secretary general calls for “urgent action” from Europe, which must “switch to a war mentality”.
In his first public appearance in Brussels since becoming head of the defense allianceMark Rutte was clear about the need for an increase in military budgets, after reporting that NATO will set a new spending target of 3% of GDP by 2030.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s current commitment—fulfilled by all members—is spend at least 2% of GDP on defenseexplains .
“It is true that we spend more on defense now than we did a decade ago,” Rutte said. “But still we are spending much less than during the Cold War. Even though the threats to our freedom and security are equally great — if not greater.”
“During the Cold War, Europeans spent much more than 3% of their GDP in defense”, said the former Dutch prime minister. And he is right in the numbers: in the early 1980s, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, European members of NATO spent around 3.8% of GDP on defense.
Mark Rutte also said that it is necessary “switch to a war mentality” and “turbocharge” production and expenditure with the defense. He drew attention to the fact that the 2% of GDP that most NATO allies spend on defense is not enough to, in the long term, deter potential adversariestells .
The European Commission estimates that EU defense spending over the next decade is expected to increase by 500 billion euros.
The European Commissioner for Defense, Andrius Kubiliustold Politico in early December that around €100 billion should be allocated to defense in the EU’s next long-term budget — up from €10 billion in the current budget. To the military expenses should be excluded EU limits on national debts and deficits.
The Polish Minister of Finance, Andrzej Jan Domańskialso assured this week that two options for joint EU financing are on the table: first, EU countries could issue common debtalthough this required a unanimous decision that was difficult to achieve.
A second way would be to creation of a special purpose vehicle that countries could support on a voluntary basis.
“Embrace the risk demands that you, governments, change the outdated rules of public contracts”, Rutte also said, referring to the need to abandon “detailed requirements”.
To weapons manufacturers, he suggests that “dare to innovate and take risks! … Make additional shifts and new production lines!”
“We are not prepared for what awaits us in four or five years“, he finished.
