NATO Secretary Rutte Calls on Europeans to Shift to a ‘War Mentality’
NATO Secretary Mark Rutte. X/ @BRICSinfo
December 13, 2024 Hour: 8:28 am
European governments are discussing a plan to increase defense spending to 3 percent of the GDP by 2030.
On Thursday, Mark Rutte, the secretary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), urged allies to step up their military spending and shift to a “war mentality” in order to avoid another conflict on their soil like the Ukrainian one.
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“What is happening in Ukraine could happen here too… It is time to shift to a war mentality. And to quickly recharge our defence production and defence spending,” he said during a conference organised by the Carnegie Europe think tank.
The NATO Secretary said that regardless of the outcome of the war in Ukraine, “we will not be safe in the future unless we are prepared to face the danger.”
“We can do it. We can avoid the next big war on NATO soil and preserve our way of life,” he said, stressing the need for the Alliance to maintain its long-term deterrence capacity “to ensure that no one considers attacking us.”
“It is true that we now spend more on defence than we did a decade ago. But we are still spending far less than we did during the Cold War – when defence spending in Europe was more than 3 percent – even though the threats to our freedom and security are just as great, if not greater,” he said.
In fact, the NATO European members are already discussing a plan to gradually increase defense spending to 3 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030. Preliminary talks took place at last week’s foreign ministers’ meeting, during which members envisaged “a short-term pledge to hit 2.5 percent and, by 2030, a target of 3 percent,” the Financial Times (FT) reported.
The decision could be made at the next NATO summit, which will take place in June 2025 in The Hague. The current target, agreed on in 2014, is 2 percent of GDP. Increasing it to 3 percent would “put intense pressure on already strained national budgets,” FT added.
Seven European NATO members, including Italy and Spain, have not reached the 2 percent target in 2024. Germany reached the target for the first time this year.
The increase in defense spending comes as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who has been demanding Europe pay more for its own security, is to take office in January.
teleSUR/ JF Sources: EFE – Xinhua
