The new NATO spending target of 5% of GDP, reached at this week’s summit in The Hague, capped two days of talks in which American hard power — and President Donald Trump’s hardball negotiating tactics — were front of mind for the alliance's European members.
With the exception of Spain, all members agreed on Wednesday to boost their defence-related spending to 5% of their economic output by 2035, more than doubling the previous target of 2% of GDP. At least 3.5% will have to be spent on core military capabilities, with the remainder allocated to related fields such as transport infrastructure, cyber defences and societal preparedness.
In return, Europe’s NATO members got a renewed commitment from Trump to Article 5 of the NATO treaty, effectively pledging to defend any NATO member that comes under attack — allaying fears of a broader conflict with Russia, whose economy has moved onto a war footing since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
“This summit has been one big transatlantic bargain,” a diplomat involved in the talks told The Parliament. “The European pledge to spend 5% on defence was a trade-off in exchange for Trump’s commitment to Article 5. Five for five.”
The idea is for Europe to be able to take care of its own defence, allowing the US to focus on the Pacific theatre. But achieving self-sufficiency is about more than money: Europe also faces difficulties in recruiting young people into its armed forces, and in developing strategic command-and-control functions that are currently only provided by the US.
“Europe has to accept responsibility for its own security, with or without the US,” Ben Hodges, a retired US general who commanded US forces in Europe, told The Parliament.
Keeping Trump happy
In an effort to avoid public disagreements and present a united front in The Hague, NATO leaders meticulously managed the summit’s optics. The seaside town became a fortress, with half of Dutch police officers patrolling the streets.
Behind closed doors, a strategy of brevity and carefully coordinated messaging aimed to sidestep the kind of high-profile clashes that have marred previous meetings, especially given the unpredictable posture of the US administration.
“The whole format of this summit, the timing, the length, has been organised to minimise the chance of Donald Trump blowing it up, leaving early,” Hodges said.
A revised NATO strategy addressing the Russian threat — intended to replace the alliance’s 1990s-era approach that viewed Russia as a potential partner — was expected to be adopted at the summit. But the plan was dropped at Washington’s insistence to avoid irritating Trump as he pursues, so far unsuccessfully, a negotiated settlement with Moscow over its ongoing war in Ukraine.
A session of the NATO-Ukraine Council, where alliance leaders meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, never materialised, reflecting Trump’s ambivalence toward Ukraine’s leadership — something that Hodges described as a “strategic mistake” regardless of the rationale.
Despite some optimistic press statements from European leaders and a brief bilateral between Trump and Zelenskyy, Ukraine was largely sidelined. The final declaration mentioned the country only twice, and Russia was no longer explicitly identified as the aggressor in Ukraine — a notable shift from previous summit language.
The 5% target became the summit’s singular focus. This polished display of unity sought to reassure member states and international observers that the alliance remains cohesive when it really matters, even as internal fault lines persist.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte presented the defence spending agreement as a victory for Trump, praising him for pushing Europeans to act in their own interests. In a private text message that Trump released on Tuesday, Rutte lauded him for making Europe "pay in a big way" on military spending.
"Mark Rutte has been trying to limit the questions the Americans don’t want to answer," Juraj Majcin, a defence analyst at the European Policy Centre, told The Parliament. "This summit is another push for Europeans to step up and build a European pillar within NATO."
Europe’s dependence on US capabilities
Despite the renewed commitment to Article 5, the US is more broadly pushing ahead with its pivot to Asia, begun under Barack Obama’s presidency more than a decade ago, and expects European allies to be able to bear the brunt of an eventual Russian invasion.
That shift exposes a stark reality: Europe remains heavily reliant on Washington for NATO’s operational backbone. Intelligence, satellite coverage, long-range strike systems and battlefield logistics — the alliance’s strategic enablers — are overwhelmingly provided by the US.
“The US doesn’t have that much military personnel in Europe, and most of it is rotational anyway,” said Hodges. “The real things the US brings to Europe are intelligence and other strategic capabilities.”
Most European militaries lack experience in planning or commanding large-scale multinational operations, leaving them dependent on the US for coordination and strategic leadership.
In the post-Cold War era, Europe has prioritised expeditionary missions over territorial defence. Only the UK and France have operational capabilities in areas like intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and strategic lift — albeit at a much smaller scale than the US.
Europe’s defence efforts are further hampered by a patchwork of national equipment. Most countries operate different tanks, aircraft and communication systems, which can’t be combined into larger formations or share logistics capabilities.
“The interoperability between countries is insufficient,” Karen van Loon, research fellow at Clingendael Institute, a think tank in The Hague, told The Parliament. “France has one system, Italy has another. They may look similar, but they can’t even use the same ammunition.”
The issue extends beyond hardware. Variations in software, command systems, and battlefield communications hinder real-time coordination and data sharing — a key aspect of modern conflict. While EU and NATO initiatives aim to harmonise standards and boost cooperation, progress remains slow.
As a result of this fragmentation many European countries, especially smaller members without their own defence industries, prefer to buy American equipment. Data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute shows that nearly two-thirds of military equipment used by European NATO members now comes from the US, up from around half less than a decade ago.
Without a change to that dynamic, the coming increase in spending will mean pumping money into the US economy, rather than creating jobs and wealth within Europe.
Public support and budget battles
The lack of an industrial base means European leaders struggle to link defence spending to employment and economic growth. With taxes high and welfare spending already under pressure across much of the continent, winning popular support for the new spending targets won’t be straightforward.
Nonetheless, Spain is the only country to have rejected this week’s target. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, having previously stretched the definition of defence spending to a breaking point, this week said Madrid would cap its spending at 2.1%. It’s unclear whether Spain’s reticence will be enough of a drag on morale for other members to shirk their responsibilities.
"Spain’s opt-out motivates other countries to question why they should be spending so much,” the EPC’s Majcin said. “On the other hand, European security doesn’t just rely on Spain.”
Willpower aside, coming up with the money may require structural changes including provisions for EU joint borrowing. “Germany, France, the UK — they are having trouble reaching the target,” Majcin said. “Every country will need to find its own path. It will be another opportunity for the EU to look into joint borrowing."
Belgium and Slovakia have also raised doubts about the target. “2035 is still far down the road,” one Belgian official told The Parliament. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
The EU is offering support through its new €150 billion Security Action for Europe (SAFE) instrument, aimed at providing loans for defence procurement, alongside the proposed €1.5 billion European Defence Industry Programme.
A more substantial increase in EU level defence funding is expected with the bloc’s next multiannual financial framework, but that will only take effect from 2027.
"Necessary capabilities to defend ourselves against Russia will require budgetary efforts,” Belgian MEP Wouter Beke (EPP) told The Parliament. “But it's tax money from the people. It's important we spend that in the most efficient way possible.”
Ultimately, the answer may lie in building a competitive and coordinated defence industry that pumps all this borrowed EU money back into the domestic economy — and eventually competes with the US giants for lucrative contracts in the rest of the world.
“We must stop wasting money by working separately,” Dutch MEP Reinier Van Lanschot (Greens/EFA) told The Parliament. “By working together at the EU level — buying the same equipment, building our own defense industry — we get much more value for our money. That’s how we turn spending money into real European safety.”
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