Miguel A. Lopes / LUSA
Mark Rutte (left) with Luís Montenegro in Lisbon
Mark Rutte visits Lisbon and meets with Marcelo and Montenegro. He again asks for more investment in defense, but Portugal continues to fall under NATO’s “number 1 problem”.
Former Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte arrived in Lisbon this Monday, with an agenda that includes meetings with the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, with the Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, and with the ministers responsible for Foreign Affairs, Paulo Rangel, and National Defense, Nuno Melo, advances to Lusa.
The trip is part of the contacts that the secretary general of the Atlantic Alliance promotes with member states, namely to begin preparations for the NATO summit, which this year takes place in The Hague.
Among the topics to be addressed on this trip will be the challenge made by Mark Rutte for Member States to invest more in defense, but also the position defended by the new President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, who requires an investment of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in defense in the order of 5%.
Portugal, one of the founding countries of NATO, plans to reach 2% of GDP in defense in 2029, value that may be “updated” soon, as reported by .
“We cannot be carried away by those who are already starting to talk about 4% and 5% across the board. This is honestly not appropriate. But it is appropriate to think that in the coming years we will have to be part of a supranational strategy“.
Recently, Montenegro reiterated that a 5% expenditure “is not feasible”, neither “in the short term nor in the medium term, such a ratio in terms of expenditure ‘versus’ the Gross Domestic Product. We need to be aware that it is understandable that allied states are asked to make a greater effort at a time when the response must also be greater”, he said in Berlin.
The government is not willing to do cuts “in none of the essential public services”the prime minister also said in a fortnightly debate in December, in parliament.
Marcelo assured that he supported “the position that was defended by the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the president of the European Council, António Costa”.
“It’s this: what we have to do is look at all European countries and find out if, as a whole, they rise, if they meet the 2% and if they are in a position, later or now, to rise above that, as a whole – instead of analyzing one by one whether or not they meet the 2% and whether, later, can rise to 3%“, said Marcelo last Friday.
As the , however, Portugal is a problem for NATO: currently, the real budget of the Ministry of Defense is only 1,1% do PIB. In other words, for the Portuguese (and Spanish) increasing military expenditure to a value close to 3% would mean doubling it.
Recently, Mark Rutte assured that the fact that not all countries were spending 2% of GDP on defense was the “problem number 1” of NATO. Problem number 2? “2% is not even close to being enough”.
