NATO chief urges Europe to ‘stop complaining’

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference (MSC) on Saturday, Rutte emphasized the need for actionable ideas, including on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the bloc’s effort to ramp up its defense spending.

“Get into the debate, not by complaining… but by coming up with concrete ideas,” he stated.

Rutte also urged the bloc’s members to ramp up their military spending, pointing out that despite previous commitments, many countries have yet to meet agreed-upon defense expenditure targets. The NATO chief also confirmed the US-led bloc was expected to reach a new agreement on spending targets during the upcoming summit of the organization scheduled for June.

European members of NATO have sounded the alarm over the possibility they could end up sidelined in potential peace negotiations to resolve the nearly three year-long Ukraine conflict following a phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump on Wednesday. It is the first publicly known top-level contact between the US and Russian leadership since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022.

On Thursday, seven European nations and the EU Commission insisted they needed to be a part of any future negotiations on Ukraine, saying that their exclusion would make a lasting peace impossible.

“Our shared objectives should be to put Ukraine in a position of strength. Ukraine and Europe must be part of any negotiations,” they announced in a joint statement after a ministerial meeting in Paris, adding that a “just and lasting peace in Ukraine is a necessary condition for a strong transatlantic security.”

Washington, however, has signaled that European powers may not find a seat at the table. Trump’s special envoy on Russia and Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, said at the MSC on Saturday that Kiev would undoubtedly be present, but that Europe may not be.
“What we don’t want to do is get into a large group discussion,” he explained.