Ahead of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in the Swedish port city of Helsingborg on Thursday, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadeful stressed Berlin’s readiness to assume greater leadership responsibilities in NATO.
“Our goal is a new burden-sharing arrangement that reflects the economic and military potential of Germany and Europe,” he said in Berlin before leaving for Sweden. “Germany is accepting responsibility for its leadership,” he said.
“We want a strong NATO with a bigger role for Europe,” Wadefull said. “To achieve this, we seek to unite the capabilities of our industries through more intensive defense cooperation.”
The minister said Germany wants to reach NATO’s 5% spending target and strengthen its defense capabilities as soon as possible.
At the 2025 NATO summit, the alliance agreed that member states should invest at least 3.5% of their GDP in defense spending in the future. An additional 1.5% is to be allocated for defence-related spending such as infrastructure, bringing the total target to 5% annually by 2035.
Rutte: Many members ‘not spending enough’ to support Ukraine
Wadefull also announced that he intended to make “concrete proposals” on “how we can continue to strongly support Ukraine in defending freedom in Europe”. According to the German minister, this includes ways in which NATO can benefit from the impressive achievements of the Ukrainian defense industry.
Meanwhile, Mark Rutte, the head of the military alliance, said many NATO members are not contributing enough money to help Ukraine defend itself against a full-scale invasion by Russia.
Rutte told reporters in the Swedish city of Helsingborg ahead of a meeting of NATO ministers that aid to Ukraine “is no longer distributed even within NATO.”
“When it comes to support for Ukraine there are a limited number of countries that are really punching above their weight, including Sweden, and Canada and other countries like Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway, and a few others,” he said.
“But many people don’t spend enough when it comes to supporting Ukraine,” he said.
Rubio criticizes NATO’s refusal to help Iran
In addition to strengthening Europe’s security, ministers are also set to discuss the war in Iran and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz during their meeting in Helsingborg.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to arrive in Sweden on Friday. Leading up to the summit, he repeated criticism of NATO for not supporting the US war on Iran.
“President Donald Trump is not asking them to send their fighter planes. But they have refused to do anything,” Rubio told reporters. “We were very troubled by it.”
Recently, following critical remarks by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Trump announced the withdrawal of 5,000 US troops from Germany.
There is also confusion over whether the deployment of thousands of troops to Poland will go ahead as planned.
Edited by: Shawn Sinico