Thursday 13 / February / 2025
Brussels: NATO defence ministers will gather in Brussels later on Thursday to discuss raising military expenditure, expanding defence industry capacities and the war in Ukraine.
US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth is to attend the meeting as the pressure mounts on European NATO allies to drastically increase their defence expenditure.
US President Donald Trump has long criticised what he calls the low defence expenditure in some NATO countries and has urged allies to increase spending to 5% of their gross domestic product (GDP) - more than double the current target.
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said that raising the pledge from at least 2% to 5% was not on the table.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said he was aiming for a new target "north of 3%."
Before potentially agreeing on a new spending pledge at the upcoming NATO summit in June in The Hague, work is underway to define capability targets to target new investments.
Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov is expected to join NATO ministers in the afternoon for a briefing on the situation on the battlefield.
The US administration's interest in making the Danish territory of Greenland part of the United States is not on the official agenda, but could be raised on the sidelines as NATO member Denmark will also be represented at the meeting.
