Europeans should focus on building up military capabilities and supporting Ukraine rather than worrying about who will be the next US president, according to an interview in Euractiv by outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
Rutte is considered the only contender to head the Western military alliance after current NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s term ends in October.
Speaking to Euractiv on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, Rutte doubled down on comments he made earlier on stage on Saturday, where he told European security leaders to “stop moaning and nagging and whining about Trump.”
Rutte, in response to a question about NATO’s demands, said the problem with the issue was that it would then appear “that we are doing this because of Trump – let’s see who gets elected.”
We have to make sure that we ramp up production and ramp up spending on defence systems – and defence generally – because it is in our interest, he stressed.
Over the past few years, the US has been persuading European countries, which already spend about half of their defence purchases on US equipment, not to make sweeping changes to spend more of that money domestically. Mark Rutte notes that spending 2 per cent is necessary, especially he picked up on this after Trump’s statements saying he would not defend members who “don’t pay.”
Trump is right – just like Biden, by the way, and Obama in his days – to tell us Europeans we need to move towards 2 percent [NATO’s defence spending target] – and we have to move, Rutte emphasised.
Regarding ensuring a modern defence industry that meets Europe’s modern needs, he noted that “Europeans will need to coordinate better among themselves.”
It’s very positive that as nations we coordinate better amongst ourselves, and fantastic if it is European, but always in an open connection to the rest of the world.
Rutte said one example of this is the US F-35 fighter jets, which remain the dominant choice in the European defence landscape compared to future European fighter jets under development, but still highlighted:
Obviously, if we can buy fuel European, fantastic, but to be honest, you will never get there without also buying American, and then you can still do it in a very open way.
