NATO members to allocate part of GDP for Ukraine

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has asked allies to allocate 0,25 percent of GDP to Ukraine, seeking to ease growing tensions within the Alliance over aid to Kiev, the Politiko portal reported.

However, the proposal - which could unlock tens of billions of dollars in additional aid - is already facing strong resistance from some major NATO members.

The Alliance's Secretary General raised the possibility at a closed-door meeting of NATO ambassadors late last month, two NATO diplomats and a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Brussels-based portal.

"Rute and many of us want support for Ukraine to be consistent and predictable," said one NATO diplomat.

If the Allies approve the idea, annual aid flows to Ukraine would effectively triple to $143 billion, based on the Alliance’s own estimate of the total GDP of NATO members. Ukraine received $45 billion in security assistance from allies last year — from weapons purchases for its military to investments in Ukrainian defense companies and a NATO-led effort to buy American weapons for Kiev.

Rutte's proposal came in part in response to frustration in some capitals that they are doing much more than others to help Kiev, sources told Politika. The Nordic and Baltic countries, the Netherlands and Poland allocate a higher percentage of their GDP to military aid to Ukraine than many other allies, according to data from the Kiel Institute.

Data from the German organization shows that the Nordic countries are giving more than their promised share, that the large countries of Western Europe are roughly in line with their GDP, while Southern Europe "remains a small donor."

“Those countries that really contribute more raise this issue every time,” EU foreign policy chief Kaia Kalas said Tuesday after a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers in Brussels. “And if we look at the numbers, it’s clear that the burden is not evenly distributed.”

Late last year, Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergård told Politico that “the fact that the Nordic countries, with a population of less than 30 million, provide a third of the military support provided by NATO countries - with almost a billion people - is not sustainable.”

Rutte wants to provide support for Ukraine while also seeking to minimize cracks within the Alliance; aid to Ukraine has been in question after Donald Trump suspended almost all new military aid, leaving European countries and other allies to shoulder the full burden of supporting Kiev.

"We are entering the Ankara summit, which will, of course, focus heavily on Ukraine - on keeping it as strong as possible," Rute told reporters in Montenegro on Tuesday.

A similar idea was first floated last year by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “Ukraine is part of European security, and we want 0,25 percent of a specific partner country’s GDP to be allocated to our defense industry and domestic production,” he told reporters last June.

But Rutte's proposal has been met with skepticism from some allies, including France and the United Kingdom, diplomats said, meaning it is unlikely to be accepted in its current form. Any alliance-wide goal would have to be approved by all NATO members.

The idea of ​​setting a percentage of GDP is just one of several being worked on to achieve a concrete result for Ukraine at the summit on July 7-8, two NATO diplomats said.

“In Ankara, allies need to show Ukraine that NATO supports it for the long term,” said a third NATO diplomat. “That means money, weapons and political commitment.”

Plans to help Ukraine are further complicated by the fact that some NATO members, which are also EU members, want their contribution to the recently approved €90 billion loan to Ukraine - €60 billion of which will be earmarked for military spending - to be "taken into account" in any future proposals asking them to allocate more money to Kiev, another NATO diplomat said.

NATO foreign ministers are likely to discuss the issue when they meet next week in Helsingborg, a city in southern Sweden, two diplomats told Politico. They added that the gathering could be an opportunity to gauge support for different measures.