I’ve written about how, when the name of the former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte began to be circulated as possible next NATO Secretary General, months before the US Presidential election, it was clear that one of his particular features was the fact that he didn’t suffer quite as much from Trump Derangement Syndrome as many other European leaders – as you can read in Dutch PM Rutte Urges European Leaders to ‘Stop Moaning and Whining and Nagging About Trump’, Says NATO Has to ‘Work With Whoever Is on the Dance Floor’
And now that he is the Secretary General, he doesn’t seem to be changing his tune, as yesterday (15), Rutte ‘offered some blunt advice’ to Europe: ‘stop complaining and present solutions’.
CNBC reported
“’Get into the debate, not by complaining …. but by coming up with concrete ideas’, he told the Munich Security Conference.
The NATO chief also confirmed that the alliance would reach a new agreement for defense spending targets when members meet in June for a summit in the Hague, Netherlands.
‘It will be a number much more than than 2%’, Rutte said, without providing more specific details.”
During the campaign, Trump repeatedly warned that ‘NATO members are over-reliant on the U.S. for their own security’.
“’I think NATO should have 5% [of their GDP as a NATO contribution target]’,” [Trump] said in January. ‘They can all afford it, but they should be at 5%, not 2%’, he said.”
So, Rutte is no trying to achieve a deal to be implemented by all 32 NATO countries.
Politico reported:
“NATO members will have to boost their defense spending by ‘considerably more than 3 percent’ of GDP, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said Saturday during an interview at the POLITICO Pub on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.
[…] The future target should be agreed at NATO leaders’ summit in June in The Hague.
‘Over the next couple of months, we will get convergence’ on the budget goal, Rutte said, adding that to increase spending ‘we will have to prioritize defense over other stuff’. That’s a reference to governments having to make difficult decisions on military spending over popular social welfare programs.”
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