NATO Secretary General with the President of Czechia 🇨🇿 Petr Pavel, 21 MAY 2025

Joint press point with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and the President of Czechia, Petr Pavel, 21 May 2025. 🗣 | NATO Secretary General: President Pavel, dear Petr. Welcome to NATO Headquarters, and I can only say it is a pleasure to see you. Twenty-six years ago, Czechia joined our Alliance, and since then, you have consistently proven to be a strong and reliable Ally. You spend more than 2% of GDP on defence, and I welcome the commitment you have already made to increase defence spending to 3% in the coming years. Czechia's contributions to NATO's deterrence and defence are highly valued. You contribute to NATO's forward land forces in Slovakia, Latvia and Lithuania, and this year, you will deploy combat aircraft to Iceland as part of NATO's air policing mission. Czechia is also a staunch supporter for Ukraine. Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, Czechia has provided over 1.3 billion euros in military aid to Ukraine. The Czech-led ammunition initiative has been a remarkable success, facilitating the delivery of over 3 million rounds of large calibre ammunition to Ukraine. In 2024 alone, 1.5 million shells were delivered thanks to your leadership. Czech personnel are contributing to the NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine, our command in Wiesbaden, NSATU. And this July, Czech will deploy 20 personnel to NSATU's logistics enabling nodes. This is making a real difference as Russia's war against Ukraine continues, and it will remain important even after the fighting stops. Last week, NATO Foreign Ministers met in Antalya to continue preparations for the NATO Summit in the Hague. Our focus there was clear: how to make our Alliance stronger, fairer and more lethal. Today, President Pavel and I continued that conversation. Strengthening our deterrence and defence is our core mission. This means that Allies must increase defence spending, a key priority for the Summit in The Hague to ensure our forces have the capabilities they need, and that burden sharing is taking place in a fair sense among our Allies. I welcome the significant announcements made by several allies in recent days and weeks to boost their national defence spending. We will need to do much more, and this will remain our focus as we prepare for the The Hague Summit. This also requires strengthening our industrial capacity, securing more robust supply chains, and investing in new technologies to stay ahead of the curve in a more dangerous world. We need a Transatlantic defence industry that is stronger, faster and more innovative, and here also we need your help with your impressive defence industrial base. With only five weeks before the Summit in The Hague, we have a lot of work to do, and I know I can count on Czechia continued commitment and leadership. President Pavel, dear Petr, thank you again for your visit, for your leadership and your strong support for our Alliance, and with that, the floor is yours. Thank you. ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ SUBSCRIBE to this channel https://bit.ly/NATOsubscribe SUBSCRIBE to NATO News https://bit.ly/NATONewsSubscribe SUBSCRIBE to NATO History https://bit.ly/NATOHistorySubscribe Connect with NATO online: Visit the Official NATO Homepage: https://bit.ly/NATOhomepage Receive NATO updates via email: https://bit.ly/NATOemails Find NATO on FACEBOOK: https://bit.ly/NATOfacebook Follow @NATO on X/TWITTER: https://bit.ly/NATOtwitter Follow NATO on Instagram: https://bit.ly/NATOinstagram Find NATO on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/NATOlinkedin Find NATO on Flickr: https://bit.ly/NATOflickr #NATO #OTAN #Czechia