LISBON (Reuters) – NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday said he expected allies would agree on a new investment pledge to spend 2% of their gross domestic product on defence at the alliance’s summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, in July.
NATO members needed to “commit more”, Stoltenberg told a joint press conference with Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa in Lisbon.
The NATO chief has repeatedly urged allies to speed up increases in defence spending as the world had “become more dangerous” following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.
Seven of the alliance’s 30 countries met the current goal of spending 2% of GDP on defence in 2022 – one fewer than in 2021, before the war in Ukraine – according to estimates in the NATO secretary-general’s annual report, released in March.
(Reporting by Sergio Goncalves; Writing by David Latona; Editing by Alex Richardson)
