In his first appearance before the European Parliament, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte urged European countries to increase their defense investments, emphasizing that the security they enjoy today cannot be guaranteed with existing capacities.
Rutte expressed confidence that the United States would continue to be committed to NATO, but he also acknowledged the validity of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s position that European countries must invest more in defense.
The NATO leader stated that it is an illusion to form a “European NATO” without the U.S., at least for the next 20 years, as European countries would need to allocate 8% of their GDP for defense in order to achieve this.
“More than 60% of the total defense investments across all NATO countries come from the United States. The other 31 countries, including Canada, share less than 40%. This proves how illusory a strong NATO is without America. And such a NATO is unnecessary, as the current structure has served us well since World War II,” Rutte said.
Currently, NATO’s requirement is for member states to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense.
“Today we have security, but we will not have it in the next five years. So, either invest more in defense, or sign up for a Russian language course or move to New Zealand,” Rutte told the members of the European Parliament, calling on them to help increase defense investments.