The North Atlantic Alliance countries have begun drafting an agreement on a significant increase in defence spending in order to soften US President Donald Trump’s demand to spend 5 per cent of GDP on military needs.
Negotiators in the military alliance are making progress towards achieving 5 per cent of GDP for defence and defence-related spending by 2032 ahead of the NATO summit in The Hague in June.
NATO foreign ministers will discuss the initiative at a meeting in Antalya on Wednesday and Thursday. According to one senior European diplomat, such a significant increase in spending within the proposed timeframe will be a huge challenge, although many now consider the effort necessary to send a strong signal to the Kremlin.
A defence spending agreement on the scale demanded by Trump, given that none of the 32 NATO members, including the US, has reached this threshold, would be the largest increase in allies’ spending since the end of the Cold War.
Earlier, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte found a way to increase the military spending of the alliance countries to 5 per cent of GDP. His plan is to increase defence spending from 2 to 3.5 per cent of GDP, while increasing other ‘security’ spending to 1.5 per cent of GDP.
