Rutte wants NATO standard of 5 percent, spread over military and infrastructure expenditure

NATO countries must spend 5 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) on their own defense. This would concern 3.5 percent of defense expenditure and 1.5 percent of things such as cyber security and infrastructure. That financial distribution is in a new proposal from Mark Rutte, Secretary General of NATO.

Earlier on Friday, the American news agency Reuters reported that Rutte will come up with this proposal in the run-up to a NATO summit at the end of June in The Hague. There, the 32 countries of the military alliance must agree on a new NATO standard: the mandatory percentage of the gross domestic product that countries must at least spend on their defense.

The debate about the level of that standard has been going on for months. The current NATO standard is 2 percent of GDP. For years that norm was not achieved by many countries, including the Netherlands,, but the war in Ukraine changed that.

Recently the Netherlands does reach the 2 percent standard, but for US President Donald Trump that is not enough. He wants NATO countries to spend 5 percent of their GDP on military investments. At the beginning of January argued NATO chef Rutte for A standard of « 3.6 to 3.7 percent » so that the countries can achieve « future goals of the military alliance. »

Compromise

Now he seems to want to meet the US by raising the total defense percentage towards the 5 percent wanted by Trump. The military part, however, remains virtually the same as what Rutte argued in January, but now 1.5 percent is added to spending for infrastructure and cyber security.

Different countries, such as Spain, found the 3.6 percent proposed by Rutte. They wanted to spend part of it on the strengthening of, for example, bridges and other infrastructure projects. Rutte does not agree with that, but he believes that such expenses should be part of the NATO standard.

The 32 countries will meet in The Hague in June to agree on a new financial standard. In the run -up to that top, Rutte is now making a proposal, a so -called ‘scoping paper’, hoping to find a compromise in which all countries can agree.

With the cooperation of Michel Kerres.

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