NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte visited Berlin on Wednesday for talks with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Defence Minister Boris Pistorius ahead of next week’s NATO Summit in Ankara.
Rutte also attended a meeting of the German cabinet, which NATO described in a release on Wednesday as the first time in recent history that a NATO Secretary General has done so.
“Germany leads and Germany delivers,” Rutte said after the meeting, adding that the Ankara summit would focus on “increased defence spending, more defence production, and strong support for Ukraine.”
He also praised Germany’s investment in defence, calling it “an extraordinary achievement.”
Rutte pointed to Germany’s contributions to NATO, including an armoured brigade permanently stationed in Lithuania.
He also cited the 1st German-Netherlands Corps taking on tactical command for NATO ground forces in Estonia and Latvia.
Calls for more defence production
NATO is a transatlantic alliance, but it needs to be “rebalanced”, with European allies and Canada taking greater responsibility for conventional defence in Europe while working closely with the United States, Rutte said.
Germany is a leading provider of aid to Ukraine and its strongest supporter in Europe, he declared.
Rutte also urged defence industries across NATO to “open new production lines, expand supply chains and deliver quickly what we need for our security.”
Before leaving Berlin, he said: “Germany, Europe, and North America have always been stronger together in NATO.”
