NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Wednesday sharply criticized the alliance’s arms companies, saying they were producing too little, charging too much and delivering too slowly, Reuters reported.
Rutte also said the current target of 2 percent of production would not be enough to deter future attacks.
“I firmly believe – and I know many other allies firmly believe – that 2 percent is simply not enough. In the long term, it is simply not enough, we want to maintain our deterrence at the level it is now. Now everything is OK and we can defend ourselves and no one should try to attack us. But I want to see it the same in four or five years,” he said.
The NATO secretary general noted that the alliance would not only have to spend more on defense, but also get a better return.
“We are not producing enough, we are charging too much, and deliveries are too slow, so the defense industry needs to increase the number of shifts, increase the number of production lines. “We cannot have a situation where we simply pay more for the same thing and get big kickbacks for shareholders,” he told reporters after a two-day meeting of NATO foreign ministers at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels.
According to Rutte, some NATO countries are turning to South Korean arms firms because “our own defence industries are not producing the weapons we need.” The transatlantic military alliance has significantly increased its defence spending in recent years, especially since the outbreak of war in Ukraine.
NATO estimates that 23 of its 32 members will meet the target of spending 2% of GDP on defence this year, compared with only three countries that met the target when it was set in 2014.