Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance Mark Rutte He wants NATO Member States to agree to increase defense expenses to the level at the June Summit five percent of its GDP by 2032. Informed about it on Friday Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, It writes TASR, according to the AFP report.
Schoof specified that Rutte in a letter addressed to all 32 Member States proposes that over the next seven years reach expenditure 3.5 percent of GDP on “heavy (direct) military expenses” And another 1.5 percent of GDP for defense and safety expenditure, such as cyber security, infrastructure and other areas.
The criteria of what could be included in 1.5 percent of free -related defense expenditure will still be defined. The proposal comes at a time when US President Donald Trump is intensifying pressure on the Alliance Allies to significantly increase their defense budgets. However, the five percent that the White House chief demands exceeds the current expenditure of the United States.
Rutte refused to confirm the specific figures on Friday. He confirmed, however, that NATO is ongoing “internal discussions” on the more ambitious setting of defense expenses. The NATO Summit will host the Dutch city of Haag in June.
The Alliance’s diplomats said that the proposal sent last week would count on the annual increase in direct military expenditure by 0.2 percent of GDP until 2032. They added that discussions about the new goal are in the initial phase and there are still no clear indications that consensus would be achieved on these numbers.
NATO ministers are expected to deal with this issue next week at an informal meeting in Antalya, Turkey. European countries have increased their defense spending after the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. However, Rutte claims that they must go substantially further to discourage Moscow. Last year, 22 out of 32 NATO members reached the current limit of two percent of their army spending.
Several countries, such as Italy, Spain, Canada and Belgium, still lagging behind this level, have committed to reach the current agreed threshold in 2025. Last year, the United States spent 3.19 percent of their GDP in defense, lagging behind the Eastern Wing countries – Poland, Estonia and Lithuania.
