NATO Secretary General - Doorstep statement at Defence Ministers Meeting, 18 JUN 2026

Doorstep statement by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte ahead of the meetings of NATO Ministers of Defence in Brussels, 18 June 2026. 🗣 | NATO Secretary General: Good morning. This is an early start of the day. Good to see you all, and this will be an important meeting, because it is the last big meeting we will have before the Ankara Summit. So, we will discuss, obviously, the Ankara Summit, which will be all about delivering. Delivering on the spending, delivering on the industry, delivering on the support for Ukraine. When it comes to spending, what we are seeing is staggering amounts of money coming in. Europe and Canada spending in 2025 more than $90 billion extra compared to 2024 which is almost a 20% increase in defence spending. So that's really great, and we need it on a path to get to the 5% defence spending to deliver our capabilities and the capability targets. When it comes to industry, we see contracts emerging all over the place, but we need to do more, both in the US and in Europe, to make sure that we have the defence industrial output we need, and we need to keep Ukraine strong. Strong in the fight, this will be a key issue today. This is all about NATO 3.0, a stronger Europe in a stronger NATO. This is what we are building. Today we will have various meetings, the Nuclear Planning Group, that's where we will start. Then we will have a meeting at the 32 and we will have a meeting with the Ukraine Defence Contact Group where I can announce President Zelensky will also participate this afternoon, so that is important. I had the honour of hosting him last night. He will be there for the UDCG, so a pack day with many meetings, all about delivering, making sure the money, the industrial output, support for Ukraine is there. ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ 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 #DefMin