The NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte stated this, as reported by RBK-Ukraine citing Welt. This information is also covered by Kontrakty.UA.
According to him, the Alliance partners will make decisions regarding the specific details of the assessment (percentage contribution from GDP to defense, - ed.) in the coming months, "in light of the upcoming NATO summit in The Hague in June."
"But I can assure you of one thing: it will be much, much, much more than 2%," he said.
As the publication notes, at the summit, diplomats expect "intense negotiations regarding the higher goal" - initially 3 or 3.5%, so in this context, Rutte urged the Alliance partners to show greater solidarity.
"NATO must stand together as an Alliance. But the burden must be fairly distributed between Europe, Canada, and the USA. So that Americans do not pay too much, and we do not pay too little," the Secretary General stated.
Dispute over NATO defense spending
U.S. President Donald Trump threatened European countries with the cessation of the NATO mutual assistance pact if they do not invest sufficiently in their defense.
He calls on NATO allies to increase defense spending and demands that each NATO member country spend 5% of its GDP. Currently, each NATO country is supposed to spend 2% of GDP on defense. Germany is nearly failing to meet the quota, and seven EU countries do not reach it, including Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Belgium.
Additionally, this discussion has been ongoing for quite some time. In this context, it is worth mentioning, for instance, that during the discussion of the candidate for the position of NATO Secretary General, as reported by the media, some American lawmakers were categorically opposed to Rutte, as the Netherlands consistently fails to meet the NATO defense spending target of 2% of GDP.