European NATO members and Canada are set to increase their defence spending by $258 billion over the next two years
Rutte’s comments were quoted by Deutsche Welle.
The summit is taking place against a backdrop of pressure from US President Donald Trump, who has long criticised allies for their ‘ridiculous’ defence budgets and demanded that they increase spending to 5 per cent of GDP. Pentagon chief Pete Hagseth went so far as to call NATO a “paper tiger” and stated that Europe must take primary responsibility for its own defence.
In an attempt to appease Trump, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz even rang him personally — to prove that the US figures on German spending were out of date. Berlin plans to increase defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP by 2029, and to raise it to almost €110 billion as early as 2027. Rutte also called on other Alliance countries to present clear plans at the summit on how to achieve this target.
It should be recalled that in June 2025, NATO leaders committed to allocating at least 5 per cent of GDP to defence — a target to be reached by 2035.
In March 2026, a report by Secretary-General Rutte stated that, for the first time, all NATO member states had met or exceeded the previous defence spending target of 2 per cent of GDP.
Between 2024 and 2025, European countries and Canada increased their defence spending by 19 per cent, to $574 billion.
Spain, Portugal, Albania, Belgium and Canada spent the smallest share of GDP — 2 per cent — on defence last year. The highest figure was recorded in Poland (4.3 per cent of GDP).
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