Kateryna Girnyk10:15, 17.09.23
2 min.153
The Secretary General of NATO considers the current distribution of the burden of military costs within NATO to be unfair.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg calls on Germany to increase defense spending to the two percent of GDP stipulated by the NATO agreement, Süddeutsche Zeitung reports .
“I appeal to all allies, but as a large economy, Germany has more influence than others,” Stoltenberg said.
He recalled that at the NATO summit in Wales in 2014, a joint decision was made to gradually increase spending in order to bring defense spending up to 2% of GDP in all Alliance states. At the same time, Germany’s defense spending is currently 1.2 percent of GDP, according to a NATO statement.
Stoltenberg called the previously prevailing distribution of the defense burden within NATO “unfair.”
“It’s about solidarity and burden sharing. The US spends four percent of gross domestic product on defense, in Europe we’re closer to one percent. This is unfair burden sharing,” he said.
Stoltenberg also believes that Germany bears a historical responsibility within the framework of the Alliance. “For many years, Germany has benefited from the security guarantees of collective defence, and now we must ensure that our eastern allies benefit from them,” he said.
(C)UNIAN 2023
I prefer Germany to spend 0% of GDP on its military and 2% (or more) on military aid to Ukraine.
How about 2% on defense and 2% on Ukraine. They can afford it and given Germany’s role in this freakin war, it’s the right thing to do…along with France.
I didn’t think Stolenberg had the intestinal fortitude to say this publicly. Bravo!
Now Stolenberg sounds just like Trump did in 2017 – 2018 when Germany was only spending 1.2% and building Nord Stream 2 but was castigated for it. Hmmm…
Stoltenberg needs to look at his own country too, they are well below to 2% mark.
I still think Trump’s idea to move some US bases out of Germany and into Poland was a good idea too.
NATO should have bases in every country that borders russia or Belarus.
And the crown jewel would be Sevastopol in the center of the Black Sea. They could monitor everything coming out of the Azov down to Sochi.