NATO members increasing defense spending in response to Russian threat – Merz

He made this statement ahead of the second day of the NATO Summit in The Hague, according to a Ukrinform correspondent.

Merz expects that today the member countries will jointly adopt a decision to provide NATO with “significantly better resources in the future” — including allocating 3.5% of GDP for defense and 1.5% for military infrastructure.

“All of this is happening with broad consensus because we agree that the threat landscape has changed. And the primary threat is Russia. Russia threatens not only Ukraine; Russia threatens... the entire political order of our continent,” the Chancellor emphasized.

He noted that member states are making these decisions based on “our own awareness, based on our conviction that NATO as a whole — and this especially applies to the European part of the Alliance — must do more in the coming years to ensure its own defense capability.”

On the sidelines of the summit, Merz has already held several meetings, with more scheduled in both bilateral and multilateral formats — including with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

As Ukrinform previously reported, on June 24, the German government approved a draft budget that includes a significant increase in defense spending and allocates €8.3 billion in military aid for Ukraine.

Photo: Screenshot from NATO livestream