With a key object being further strengthened its defensive potential NATOthe leaders of the alliance member states come to the annual Summit of the Alliance, hosted tomorrow and Tuesday and Wednesday in The Hague, the Netherlands, at a hub for NATO amid international uncertainty.
According to government sources, a key issue, which will be called upon to agree on the leaders of the alliance countries at the Summit, is the approval of the new NATO investment plan in defense, which sets the bar to increase the costs and investment in defense for Member States.
Specifically, the plan provides for 5% costs for the coming years. Based on what has already been announced by NATO Secretary -General Mark Rutte, the target concerns 3.5 points of purely defensive costs and 1.5 points on safety and defense -related costs and investment, such as infrastructure, industry and durability.
The initial time horizon to implement the commitment is 2035, but it has not yet been finalized and the timetable is also expected to be a matter of debate among leaders.
Government sources recall that Greece spends more than 3% of its GDP on defense and therefore belongs to the hard core of alliance countries that have exceeded the NATO commitment today 2% of GDP.
Recently, the prime minister also unveiled the country’s 12 -year defense program of 25 billion euros. Indeed, the same persons point out that Greece kept its allied commitments and during the difficult times of the fiscal crisis, which will be mentioned by Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Indeed, government sources note that the Greek prime minister is one of the first European leaders to emphasize the urgent need for Europeans to invest more and more intelligently in collective European defense and to form a powerful defense European pillar, complementary to NATO.
It is also noted that by the end of the year all countries in the alliance are expected to have achieved the goal of 2% of GDP (target in 2014), and from the beginning of the year a number of countries that had not achieved this goal have announced an increase in defense spending. Finally, the program of the Summit begins on Tuesday night with the dinner quoted in honor of the leaders of the royal couple of the Netherlands, while the summit takes place from morning until noon on Wednesday.
Source: RES-EIA