Germany, Poland, Britain, France and Italy will meet new NATO weapons and troop targets to be agreed in the summer as quickly as possible, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on Monday, quoted by Reuters and BTA.
In a statement to the media after a meeting with his colleagues from the other four countries in Poland, Pistorius welcomed NATO's decision to set new capability targets for the alliance in June, rather than in October as originally planned - a move he said was taken at the request of Germany.
"This will buy us a lot of time and we will be able to start implementation much earlier," he said. Pistorius.
NATO allies are under pressure to increase their defense spending, both externally, due to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and internally, with the return of Donald Trump to the White House, Reuters notes. During his first term as US president, Trump threatened not to help attacked alliance countries that do not spend enough on defense.
At the upcoming NATO summit in The Hague at the end of June, an increase in the target defense spending from 2% to 3% of gross domestic product (GDP) will be discussed. Trump, who will be re-elected US president in a week, recently called for the requirement to be raised to 5% of GDP.
The defense ministers of the five largest European NATO countries also agreed to support the Ukrainian arms industry for the needs of the fight against Russian aggression, DPA reported.
"If it has the necessary funds and weapons capacity, then Ukraine itself will most quickly supply its troops with equipment and weapons", Pistorius emphasized after the end of the meeting near Warsaw.
The issue was discussed via videoconference with Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustam Umerov.
Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he had discussed with partners, including the United States, the possibility of granting his country licenses to produce air defense and missile systems on its territory, Reuters notes.