NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said that before the Alliance's summit, which will take place in The Hague from 24 to 26 June 2025, leaders should agree on three issues. The first one is support for Ukraine.
He made the statement during a joint press conference with Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs at the Adazi military base, Interfax-Ukraine reports.
‘In the coming months, we will need to discuss several important issues. Of course, first and foremost, we have to make sure that Ukraine prevails and that Putin does not win in Ukraine. This is the absolute number one priority,’ Rutte said.
The NATO Secretary General called the increase in defence funding by the Alliance member states another important issue.
‘If we subtract the US spending, we now have 2% in Europe as a NATO member, which is simply not enough. So we will need to discuss additional spending,’ he explained.
Rutte called defence production the third important issue.
‘We are currently not producing enough. We need to do more to replenish our stockpiles to be ready to face any enemy. So, these two issues are defence spending and defence production. And all of this, working with our partners, the EU, and also in the Indo-Pacific region, including Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and our southern neighbourhood. This is extremely important. But defence spending and increasing defence production - we have to do it,’ the NATO Secretary General concluded.