The 32 leaders of the Nato military alliance have signed a unanimous agreement to commit 5 per cent of national output to defence and related infrastructure in a pact German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, described as “historic”.
At the culmination of a two-day summit in The Hague, the commitment was matched by strong reassurance from US president Donald Trump that the US in turn continued to support mutual defence among the allies, as set out in article 5 of the Nato charter.
“We’re with them all the way,” Mr Trump said, as the leaders convened for a meeting of the North Atlantic Council – Nato’s key decision-making body – which backed a two-tier military spending agreement that is months in the making.
The first tier of that agreement should see an increase in spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP, followed by a second committing members to another 1.5 per cent for non-military ancillary spending, such as infrastructure improvements and cybersecurity.
The two together commit the alliance – with the exception for now of Spain, which is being allowed some “flexibility” – to meet Mr Trump’s long-demanded spending target of 5 per cent by 2035.
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The deal was set out by Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte in the opening stages of the council meeting in response to “Europeans’ profound fears that Russia poses a growing threat to their security following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022”.
The detail had been well trailed and Mr Trump responded quickly and positively: “Five per cent is a big jump from the current 2 per cent, and a lot of people don’t even pay that. So I think that’s going to be very big news … a great victory for everybody.”
French president Emmanuel Macron was among the first to emerge from the council meeting. He said the push to invest more would strengthen the European pillar within Nato, allowing Europe to “take greater responsibility for its own security”.
Mr Merz said there was now “no reason to be worried about Nato’s future”.
In the final communique from the summit on Wednesday afternoon, the allies confirmed the 5 per cent spending increase and their “iron-clad commitment to collective defence”.
However, diplomatic sources suggested that references to Russia had been toned down, perhaps at Mr Trump’s insistence, to a single description of Moscow as “a long-term threat” rather than as the instigator of the Ukraine war in 2022.
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Expressions of support for Ukraine in the communique were more reserved than president Volodymyr Zelenskiy might have liked given his two days of lobbying the leaders.
The text read: “Allies reaffirm their enduring sovereign commitment to provide support to Ukraine, whose security contributes to ours, and to this end will include direct contributions towards Ukraine’s defence and its defence industry when calculating defence spending.”
Mr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday he expected to meet Mr Trump on the margins of the summit on Wednesday. Reuters and Ukrainian broadcaster Suspilne reported that the private meeting had taken place after the North Atlantic Council and lasted about 50 minutes.
In a social media post later, Mr Zelenskiy said he had had “a long and meaningful meeting” with Mr Trump which had “covered all the really important issues”, including how to achieve a possible ceasefire and to protect the Ukrainian people.
In his post-summit comments, Mr Trump described the flight to The Hague as “a fairly long trip, but worth it”, adding: “Tremendous things have been accomplished.”
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov accused Nato of being on a path of “rampant militarisation” and of portraying Russia as “a fiend of hell” in order to justify a huge increase in defence spending.
