The Netherlands backs NATO’s spending goal of using five percent of gross domestic product for defense, outgoing Prime Minister Dick Schoof said on Friday, satisfying a key US demand just before a major summit.
Schoof’s announcement came ahead of a NATO meeting in The Hague on June 24-25, where the focus will be on reaching a deal that satisfies US President Donald Trump‘s demands for allies to spend five percent of GDP on defense.
“The government intends to support NATO’s proposal to spend 3.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) per year on defence and 1.5 percent of GDP per year on broader investments in relevant expenditure such as social resilience and infrastructure,” Schoof said in a statement.
NATO chief Mark Rutte is urging members to commit to 3.5 percent on direct military spending by 2032, and an additional 1.5 percent on broader security-related expenditure.
Schoof said: “With a war on our continent, our security is no longer guaranteed.”
“It is therefore inevitable that we will invest more in our own defence. The NATO alliance is indispensable in this. The Netherlands takes its responsibility for this.”
NATO members have been scrambling to bolster their defense capabilities since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Rutte said on Thursday that he was “pretty confident” of getting a deal that all 32 of the alliance’s membership would sign up to.
He spelled out the consequences of failing to spend five percent on defence in a recent speech in London.
“You could still have the National Health Service, or in other countries, their health systems, the pension system, etc, but you (had) better learn to speak Russian,” said the former Dutch PM.
The current minimum agreed by NATO’s countries for defence spending is two percent of GDP.
