Ahead of the NATO summit in Ankara, Rutte: Europe and Canada are moving closer to the US on defense spending

Shortly before the NATO summit in Ankara, the alliance’s secretary-general, Mark Rutte, said that the European member states together with Canada are moving in the right direction to bring their defense spending to the same level as that of the United States.

In the Turkish capital, ahead of the start of the two-day NATO summit on July 7–8, Rutte also said that the alliance “must continue to ensure that Ukraine gets what it needs,” following another devastating Russian attack in and around Kyiv on Monday, in which at least 21 people were killed.

The summit in Ankara is expected to review the progress of the 32 allied countries in meeting the target approved last year in The Hague, which calls for spending 5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defense by 2035.

As some states only reached the previous threshold of 2 percent of GDP this year, the United States has increased pressure on European countries to present credible plans for meeting the new target within a decade.

Washington has long rebuked Europe for its low level of military spending, describing it as “free-riding” on collective defense.

Rutte, who has tried to maintain close relations with Trump to preserve the alliance’s unity, said that the European allies and Canada “are already investing around 4 percent of their GDP in defense and security,” adding that this has brought $258 billion in additional defense investment over the past two years.

According to Rutte, this trend shows that NATO’s other 31 members are already “on track to match their defense spending with that of the United States.”