NATO must become more European, von der Leyen and Rutte say

NATO must become more European to reduce its long-standing reliance on the US security umbrella, Ursula von der Leyen and Mark Rutte said on Tuesday as leaders of the 77-year-old alliance gathered in Ankara, Turkey, for their annual summit.

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“We both know how important close cooperation between the European Union and NATO is,” the European Commission president said alongside the NATO secretary general at an industrial forum ahead of the summit.

“But to make this possible, what we need is interoperability.”

Rutte echoed von der Leyen’s remarks, highlighting the “clear division of labour” between the two organisations: NATO oversees the command structure, capabilities and standards, while the EU is responsible for industry, investment and regulation.

Twenty-three of the EU’s 27 member states are also members of NATO.

“We cannot continue, as we did, being over-reliant on the United States. We need a much stronger Europe within a stronger NATO,” Rutte said, hailing an “unparalleled” transformation driven by closer EU-NATO cooperation.

“To stay transatlantic, we have to become more European.”

The Ankara summit comes after months of growing tensions across the Atlantic, fuelled by the White House’s unilateral decision to strike Iran and its gradual reduction of military assets stationed in Europe.

Rattled by the deepening fractures, Europeans are determined to show US President Donald Trump that they are pulling their weight and stepping up their defence investment at a rapid pace, a trend often described as the “Europeanisation of NATO”.

But while some nations, such as Poland, the Baltics and the Nordics, have drastically increased their military spending towards the new 5% of GDP target, others, such as Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Czech Republic, still lag far behind.

On Tuesday, von der Leyen touted the financial plans that her Commission has put forward to ramp up homegrown defence capabilities: €150 billion under the SAFE loan programme and €135 billion provisionally allocated in the next EU budget.

“In this geostrategic and geopolitical environment, we need a massive surge in defence investment,” she said.

“With this taxpayers’ money, we want, of course, a return on investment. And we want good jobs in Europe. We want research and development in Europe. So that’s important for us,” she added.

Rutte said NATO requires a “huge increase” across its entire defence industrial base, on both sides of the Atlantic, to keep up with Russia’s all-consuming war machine.

“Russia has the whole of its economy now on a war footing. The car industry in Russia is producing for the war effort, and that means that we’ve got to do this also in Europe, Canada and the US,” Rutte said.

“We have to defend ourselves. It’s the first task for every government. And the threat is there. Russia are working with North Korea, Iran and China. Let’s not be naive.”