“What’s important is the contribution of Europe as a whole”
With President Trump pushing NATO allies to beef defence spending beyond previous established targets, President Marcelo has stressed that what is important is the contribution of Europe as a whole to defence, and not of each country.
Speaking to journalists at the Catholic University of Portugal in Lisbon, the president said: “It’s like this: what we need to do is look at all the European countries and see if, as a whole, they are rising, if they meet the 2% and if they are in a position, later or now, to rise above that, as a whole – instead of analysing each one of them whether or not they meet the 2% and if, later, they can rise to 3%”, he said.
According to the head of state, “this is the correct view”, because “what matters to the United States of America is that Europe as a whole contributes 2%, or later 3%, what matters is looking at Europe as a whole – and not discriminating between the good and the bad by saying that some Europeans contribute more, other Europeans contribute less”.
Marcelo argued that “raising the issue by dividing countries”, at a time when “Europe is not taking off economically and has social problems”, would create, at least within some countries, “growing social dissatisfaction and growing political radicalisation”, which “is not desirable”.
“If the idea is to have Europe united in terms of common defence and security objectives, and united with the United States, the worst thing that can be done is to divide Europe within itself and divide it from the United States,” he said.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, will be in Portugal on Monday and is scheduled to meet with the President Marcelo, the Prime Minister and Ministers of Foreign Affairs and National Defence.
Right now the country is one of the few NATO allies still unable to meet the basic 2% target, which is not scheduled to be reached before 2029.
Mark Rutte meantime has made it absolutely clear that 2% is no longer enough.
