On Thursday 25 May, the Allies agreed to develop annual national plans regarding their pledges to increase in due course their national defence expenditure to 2% of GDP.
Speaking after the NATO mini-summit in Brussels, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced: “Today, we decided to develop annual national plans setting out how Allies intend to meet the defence investment pledge we made together in 2014” (at the summit in Wales). “The national annual plans will help us to maintain momentum, and invest more and better in our defence”, he added. The first series of reports should be ready by December 2017, and will be examined by the defence ministers in February 2018. Stoltenberg said the plans would relate to funding, capabilities and contributions. In his view, they will set out “how nations intend to meet their commitment to spend 2% of GDP to defence, of which 20% should be invested in major equipment; how to invest additional funding in key military capabilities that we need; and how the Allies intend to contribute to NATO missions, operations and other engagements”.
While aware that his country only devotes 1% of its GDP to defence, the president of the Spanish government, Mariano Rajoy, underlined the significant contribution made by his country to military operations. He argued that “Spain makes a major contribution to the military missions, we rank second among EU countries when it comes to NATO, EU, United Nations or anti-Da’esh coalition operations”.
This did not prevent US President Donald Trump from putting pressure on the other leaders. During his address for the inauguration of an 11 September and Article 5 memorial, he stressed it was necessary to meet commitments taken. “Twenty-three of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should pay and what they are supposed to pay for their defence. This is not fair on American taxpayers”, Trump said. “During the past eight years”, the United States “has spent more on defence than all the other NATO countries together”, he added. Only the United States, Greece, Poland, the United Kingdom and Estonia fulfil the 2% commitment. According to Trump, if all Allies had met the 2% objective, there would have been an additional $119 billion available for collective defence and for the funding of additional NATO reserves. “Two percent is the strict minimum for facing today’s very real and very vicious threats”, the US president stressed. According to Trump, 2% is insufficient for making up the shortfalls in the modernisation and preparedness of the armed forces.
Although the US president highlighted financial solidarity, he remained discreet on the subject of practical solidarity. During his address, Donald Trump pointed out that NATO was a tool for “peace and security” but he did not clearly express attachment to Article 5 on collective defence, which provides for solidarity between Allies in the event of attack on any one of them. To date, Article 5 has only been invoked once, by the United States, after t he 11 September 2001 attack. “Our Allies had responded swiftly and decisively”, Trump acknowledged. On several occasions, the NATO secretary general said the US administration has shown its attachment to collective defence. “The United States are committed to NATO and that means it is committed to Article 5, since NATO means collective defence”, Stoltenberg pointed out, saying that the greater American presence in Europe was proof of that engagement. This week, Trump presented a budgetary proposal which provides for a 40% increase in American military presence in Europe. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)