The summit born in the Netherlands starts today, the main theme will be the costs for the defense. Tomorrow Trump will meet Zelensky
He will begin with a gala dinner offered by the Dutch King Guglielmo-Alexandro the NATO summit in the Netherlands. The program of the meeting, which takes place in the city of the Hague, had been significantly streamlined in recent days, probably to avoid the repetition of the premature departure of Donald Trump, as happened in the last summit of the G7, a memory evidently still very alive.
The node on defense expenses
The summit will have only one main focus, the increase in military expenses and for the defense. In particular, the goal that the United States and the Secretary General of NATO Mark Rutte They had set themselves up is that of 5% of the GDP, which each member country should reach by 2035.
To overcome the strong reservations that came from several parties, including Italy, it has leveraged the decomposition of this expense. 3.5% of the GDP will be invested in real military expenditure, the remaining 1.5% will instead concern critical sectors related to the defense sector, such as cybersecurity, industrial capacity and infrastructures.
The node linked to Spain would also seem to have resolved. In recent days, in fact, the Spanish premier Pedro Sanchez He had arisen against the amount of expenditure in proposed defense, judging it “disproportionate” and considering it incompatible with the maintenance of national welfare, as well as potentially harmful to the country’s economic stability.
In order not to make the summit fail even before it started, a compromise solution was found. In addition to the aforementioned subdivision between 3.5 in purely military expenses and 1.5 in connected sectors, in a letter addressed to the Spanish premier the NATO secretary granted to Sanchez “Flexibility to determine your sovereign path to achieve capacity goals: I understand that Spain is convinced that you can reach targets with a trajectory of less than 5%». Rutte then specified in a subsequent press conference: “Madrid agreed on the targets of capacity, believes he can achieve the objectives with 2% while we consider it will serve 3.5%: it will be seen within the framework of the 2029 review”.
What does it mean for Italy
It should therefore not be excluded that other countries take advantage of the “previous Spain” to avoid reaching the percentage of expenditure requested by the Atlantic alliance. This would be true especially for high debt countries and with little flexibility of spending, such as Italy. If it is true that the Commission will not open infringement procedures for those countries that will lead the spending limits of the stability pact, Italy is currently attentive to the removal of the budget deficit limits.
Therefore, Until the deficit does not drop below 3%, the rules provide that the Commission cannot close the procedure. There are no exceptions. The Minister of Economy Giancarlo Giorgetti He reiterated that Italy “undertakes to promptly get out of the procedure”, but also stressed that, in these conditions, “adhere to the request to increase the costs for the defense would make our return to accounting normal impossible”.
On the other hand, it seems that other countries have already expressed their intention not to join 5% of expenditure and instead focus on the “military objectives” to be achieved. Among them Slovakia, with the Prime Minister Robert Fico Which immediately aligned with this new interpretation by saying: “To achieve NATO objectives by 2035 we are able to respect the commitments without necessarily having to significantly increase the expense for the defense up to 5% of the GDP”.
In short, the summit will have to clarify this small but very important detail.
Tomorrow afternoon the Trump -zeky meeting
The Ukrainian president could certainly not be missing Volodymyr Zelenskywhich on the other hand must refer to the flask of the G7, where the American president is up to his arrival in Canada Donald Trump He had already returned to Washington due to the crisis between Israel and Iran, thus canceling the bilateral agreed between the two.
Zelensky has already arrived at the AIA, where he will participate in the gala dinner given by King Guglielmo-Alexandro. Even if the following day the Ukrainian president will not participate in the actual summit, According to sources of Kiev, a meeting with the American president is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.
Zelensky also confirmed the thing, announcing a Sky News: «Yes, I will go (to meet Trump). I don’t know how it will go, I say it frankly. Our delegations are working on us. But yes, we will meet ». The themes that Zelensky will want to face are the usual, as announced by the Ukrainian president himself on his arrival at the Hague: “We need air defense, co -production in the defense sector and great support on the military aid front», In addition of course to greater sanctions to Russia.
Therefore tonight the way to the born summit, which however will not see the participation of the first ministers of Japan and Australia, as well as not even attending the South Korean president. For the first time since 2022 (year of the Russian invasion of Ukraine) the leaders of these three countries, so linked to NATO and America, will not participate in the annual summit of the Atlantic alliance.
