We’re meeting here in Washington to celebrate the 75th anniversary since the establishment of the world’s most successful and most resilient defensive Alliance. We’re meeting at a time of great challenges, at a time when there is a war raging in the heartland of Europe. We’re meeting at a time when we will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes in order to ensure that Russia does not win this war of unprovoked aggression.
This is a time when the NATO Alliance needs to address a series of complicated global challenges. This is also a time when we need to reconfirm our steadfast commitment to spend at least 2% of our GDP on defence expenditure. This is particularly important for European countries, not only to meet this target, but also to streamline our defence spending in order to further strengthen the NATO Alliance.
I have been a steadfast advocate of more integration in European spending. We don’t just need to spend more. We also need to be smarter about how we allocate funds in order to increase our collective defence. And strengthening our European defence capabilities is complementary to NATO’s defence posture, it strengthens NATO.
That is why we need to use the next European cycle to focus more on how we bolster our European defence. It is in our interest to do so.
Question (inaudible)
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: I’m not going to comment on this topic. There are elections coming up in the United States, and we will, of course, respect the decision of the American people. Personally, I’ve worked both with President Trump and with President Biden. What is of particular interest to us is to ensure that we maintain this very strong transatlantic bond, which has always been at the heart of the Αlliance.
