A group of four NATO leaders and a representative from the European Union on Sunday said they agreed it was time to invest more in defense spending as Russia remains a chief security threat in Europe amid the war in Ukraine, and as Western leaders brace for the incoming Trump administration.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis argued the era of spending 2% of a nation’s GDP on defense was “probably history” but he, along with the other four leaders in attendance at the North-South Summit in Lapland, Finland fell short of saying what that figure should look like.
“We know that we need to spend more than 2%,” Mitsotakis said. “But it will become very clear… once we interact with the new president, what is the figure that we will agree on within NATO.”
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece attend a press conference of the North-South Summit of Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo in Saariselka, Finnish Lapland, Dec. 22, 2024. (Lehtikuva/Antti Aimo-Koivisto via REUTERS )
“I would wait to understand exactly what is the real will of the new president of the US,” Meloni said, according to a Bloomberg report. “On NATO, we all know and understand that we have to do more. A lot of what we can do is up to the tools that we are able to put on the table.”
The Finnish prime minster echoed a similar sentiment and said, “Europe has to take greater responsibility for its own security. This means that European countries have to be strong leaders, both in the EU and in NATO.
“[Russia] is trying to consolidate power and sow discord in Europe. The geopolitical situation is also very challenging in the Middle East and North Africa, for example,” Orpo added, according to Euro News.
Kristersson said spending more on defense was important, in part, so that European nations were less dependent on the U.S. being “the main sponsor” of the alliance’s defense, but also to show Washington that European nations do take defense “seriously.”
“European countries — individually, most of us, and collectively — need to strengthen our defense. And let’s do that,” he said.
Servicemen of Ukraine’s 93rd Mechanised Brigade fire a French MO-120-RT heavy mortar at the Russian forces on the front line near the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s Donetsk region on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (Iryna Rybakova via AP)
Trump during his first administration pushed NATO leaders to meet their 2% defense spending pledge, which several did — increasing the number of allies to meet the terms of the NATO agreement from five in 2016 to nine in 2020.
But that number dropped to just six once Trump left in 2021.
By 2022, however, NATO leaders have once again began re-evaluating their defense budgets following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and by 2024, a historic number of NATO allies had met their spending agreements, with 23 out of 32 nations spending at least 2% of their GDP on defense.
Only Poland spends over 4% of its GDP on defense, while four nations spend over 3%, including Estonia, the U.S., Latvia and Greece.
Croatia, Portugal, Italy, Canada, Belgium, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Spain have yet to meet their defense spending commitments.
