At their Summit in The Hague on Wednesday 25 June, the Allies made an official commitment to spend 5% of their GDP on defence by 2035, with a revision clause in 2029 “in light of the strategic environment and updated Capability Targets”.
An objective which, according to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, would never have been achieved without pressure from US President Donald Trump.
“The Allies commit to invest 5% of GDP annually on core defence requirements as well as defence-and security-related spending by 2035”, announced the leaders in the declaration adopted at the Summit.
This commitment is twofold. The first is pure defence: by 2035, the Allies commit to increasing to at least 3.5% the share of GDP devoted each year to financing defence requirements, “i.e. expenditure based on the agreed definition of NATO defence expenditure - and to meet the NATO Capability Targets”. Each year, the Allies will present a national plan setting out a realistic trajectory that will enable them to progressively reach this percentage.
The remaining 1.5% relates to investments made by the Allies to “protect their critical infrastructure, defend their networks, ensure civil preparedness and resilience, unleash innovation, and strengthen their defence industrial base”.
Aid directly contributing to the defence of Ukraine and the development of its defence industry will be included in the calculation of the Allies’ defence expenditure, the declaration also states (see other news).
No opt-out clause and US threat of retaliation. While Spain had announced that it had obtained the possibility of achieving its capability objectives by spending less than 5% of national GDP per year, several leaders pointed out that there was no opt-out clause.
“There is no ‘opt-out’, no special treatment for any Member States. Everyone can interpret the text as Spain does”, explained Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever. His Dutch counterpart, Dick Schoof, pointed out that the target of 3.5% of GDP for ‘pure’ military spending did not come out of nowhere, but from NATO studies, adding that the Dutch studies arrived at the same result. “They’re probably right. It would be great to be able to do it for 2.1%, as Sánchez said. If he can do that, he’s a genius. And geniality is great”, quipped Mr De Wever. While Belgium’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maxime Prévot, said earlier this week that the 3.5% target would be difficult to achieve, the Belgian Prime Minister said that the 10-year target was “realistic”, but that it “won’t be easy”.
The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, persisted in his approach, assuring us that his country would respect its capability objective by spending 2.1% of its GDP on defence (instead of 3.5%). “The debate is not about the amount of expenditure. It focuses on the capabilities needed to deal with the threat. It’s pure common sense”, he explained.
Donald Trump was not convinced by this explanation. “I think what Spain is doing is terrible. They’re the only country that won’t pay up. (...) The economy is doing very well and could be blown right out of the water if something serious were to happen”, he declared. And to threaten: “We’ll make it up. We’re negotiating with Spain on a trade deal. We’re going to make them pay twice as much!”
Reaching the spending target of 5% of GDP will require major efforts on the part of some Allies. At the start of the year, seven or eight of them had not yet reached the 2% agreed in 2014, according to Mark Rutte. All these countries are expected to reach the target by the end of 2025. Only three Allies currently spend at least 3.5% of their GDP on ‘core defence’: Lithuania, Latvia and Poland. The United States stands at 3.22%.
However, some leaders - in countries that have already achieved the target or are close to doing so - felt that the 10-year target was too far off. The Polish president, Andrzej Duda, was hoping for 2030. And, according to the Lithuanian President, Gitanas Nausėda, his country does not even need this transition period.
Burden sharing. With this new spending, “the European Allies and Canada will take on a greater share of the work, equalising their spending and assuming greater responsibility for our common security”, promised Mark Rutte. “We need to ensure that we share the financial burden more, but also the military tasks”, added Dick Schoof. The Finnish President, Alex Stubb, went further, explaining that this Summit was “the birth of a new NATO, more balanced (between Europeans and Americans), and with more European responsibilities”.
“It is a great victory for everybody. We will be equalised very shortly and that’s the way it should be. (...) Europe is stepping up to take more responsibility for its security which will help prevent future disasters like the horrible situation with Russia and Ukraine”, Donald Trump was pleased to say.
Russia is a long-term “threat” to security. The Dutch Prime Minister pointed out that behind the increase in defence spending and the development of military capabilities was “what is happening in Europe with the Russian aggression in Ukraine”. “I think Russia is exhausted after more than three years of aggression against Ukraine. I’m not expecting an immediate attack, but there is a real risk in the future, so we need to be prepared”, warned Andrzej Duda.
The declaration links the increase in defence spending both “to the long-term threat posed by Russia to Euro-Atlantic security” and “to the continuing threat posed by terrorism”. In front of the media, Mark Rutte added cyber attacks, acts of sabotage and strategic competition.
Although he endorsed the declaration, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán felt that Russia did not represent a threat.
Re-commitment to Article 5. While on Thursday, before arriving at NATO, the US President had referred to “numerous definitions of Article 5”, the declaration adopted reiterates the Allies’ “unwavering” commitment to “collective defence, enshrined in Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, which states that an attack against one of the Allies shall be considered an attack against all”.
For Gitanas Nausėda, if the Allies do not have the same definition of Article 5, it should be discussed in order to arrive at a common definition. “It is crucial that Article 5 is not open to interpretation”, warned Bart De Wever.
Article 5 has only been activated once, to help the United States, following the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in Manhattan on 11 September 2001.
Developing the defence industry. Finally, the leaders stressed the importance of developing the transatlantic defence industry.
The declaration underlines the Allies’ shared commitment to rapidly develop cooperation between defence industries “on both sides of the Atlantic” and to put emerging technologies and the spirit of innovation at the service of their collective security. “We will work to eliminate defence trade barriers among Allies and will leverage our partnerships to promote defence industrial cooperation”, the leaders promise.
Mark Rutte said that the Allies would take advantage of partnerships with the European Union, Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific region “to promote defence industrial cooperation”.
“We cannot afford to depend on foreign adversaries for critical minerals”, added Donald Trump.
While French President Emmanuel Macron felt that this would help to develop Europe’s industrial base, Mr Trump explained that it was essential that the extra money invested was spent on “very serious military equipment” and not on bureaucracy. And he hopes that “this equipment will be made in America, because we have the best equipment in the world!”
In any event, the increase in capital expenditure will require commercial cooperation, according to Mr Macron. “We can’t say we’re going to spend more and, within NATO, wage a trade war against each other. It’s an aberration”, he said.
The Alliance’s annual Summit will be held next year in Turkey, prior to Albania.
See the declaration: https://aeur.eu/f/hkp (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)