Polish President calls for NATO contribution increase to Cold War levels

Andrzej Duda is advocating for a substantial increase in NATO's contribution from 2 to 3% of GDP

Apr 5, 2024 - 09:48

Polish President calls for NATO contribution increase to Cold War levels

In a speech commemorating the 75th anniversary of the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, President Duda highlighted his decision to reach out to all NATO country leaders and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

His comments come amid a reinvigorated discussion of EU NATO members that Europe should grow to rely on itself instead of the USA ahead of looming Trump presidency.

He plans to propose and justify raising defense spending, setting a threshold of 3% of GDP for North Atlantic Alliance countries.

Duda emphasized, “With its aggressive policy, the resurgence of Russian imperialism, aggression against Ukraine, Russia has clearly and unequivocally demonstrated that, unfortunately, it is returning to its Cold War policies when the Soviet Union pursued an aggressive policy against other countries, so Russia is returning to those ambitions and should receive the response it received then,” RMF24 reported.

He recalled that during the Cold War era, NATO countries allocated 3% of their GDP to defence. “Today we must return to that level,” Duda asserted. “My letter initiates the discussion on this topic, with a clear indication that we should address it at the upcoming NATO summit in Washington, marking the alliance’s 75th anniversary.”

Duda acknowledged that reaching a consensus on this issue would require extensive deliberation. “These will certainly be long debates. They will not conclude after one or two meetings, because we need to reach a consensus on this issue, but I believe that such a decision will be made,” he added.

Previously, UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron stated that it is necessary for NATO members to surpass the 2% GDP defense spending threshold to the impending US presidential elections. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, a likely presidential contender, affirmed that the United States would remain committed to NATO under his leadership, provided European countries “play fairly.”

Trump had previously complained that EU countries are not contributing enough to NATO and made comments appearing to indicate that the US would abandon NATO countries that were not meeting spending guidelines.

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