NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte visited Romania on 5 and 6 November, meeting national leaders and addressing the NATO-Industry Forum in Bucharest.
According to NATO, the visit highlighted Romania’s growing role in regional security and the alliance’s drive to expand defence industrial capacity.
During meetings with President Nicușor Dan and Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan, Rutte thanked Romania for its contributions to Black Sea security, increased defence spending and support for Ukraine. He said, “Romania is invested in NATO, and NATO is invested in Romania,” describing the country as central to the alliance’s southern and eastern posture.
Speaking at the NATO-Industry Forum, Rutte told defence leaders and industrial executives that “there simply is no strong defence without a strong defence industry.” The conference, titled Rearming NATO: Innovate, Accelerate, Sustain, focused on strengthening collaboration between governments and industry as allies prepare to raise collective defence spending toward 5% of GDP by 2035.
He urged companies to expand production and adapt supply chains to meet the alliance’s requirements, saying NATO would accelerate procurement and support innovation to help them do so. Rutte also warned that “Russia will remain a destabilising force in Europe and the world,” pointing to cooperation between Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang as signs of “long-term confrontation.”
“We cannot be naive. We must be prepared,” he said, adding that NATO and its partners must “out-gun, out-produce and out-smart those that seek to harm or diminish us.”
Following the forum, Rutte met students at the University of Bucharest to discuss security challenges facing NATO and the importance of maintaining public and industrial support for allied defence.
Is it “Rutte ing” Season ?
He’s certainly making a lot of loud calls.
I wonder if the UK Government is listening, as their defence investment plan seems to have gone into the Chancellor’s waste bin!
Known as the DIP. Abbreviation of Defence Investment Plan says it all…..
With over 60 reccomendations accepted, the DIP funding Is probably rather difficult to account for. I’m already seing Spin and deflection in various reports.
Fingers crossed, It’ll be published soon and we can all share our thoughts.
Personally, I’m not convinced any significant orders will be forth coming but serious amounts may be given over to papering over some temporarily filled cracks.