NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg called on allies on Thursday to meet commitments made two years ago and boost defense spending, as the alliance deals with a "challenging security environment," the Daily Star reports.
He spoke after talks with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte in The Hague and ahead of what he said would be a "landmark" leaders summit in Warsaw next month.
The Netherlands has already increased defense spending to try to help meet "current threats to the east and the south" of NATO's frontiers, Rutte told reporters.
Refusing to reveal any details about current cabinet discussions on the 2017 budget, Rutte added: "I do believe that over the next years we need to find room to go further." Netherlands boosted its defense spending by EUR 220 million in the 2016 budget, to a total of EUR 7.5 billion. Spending is also set to increase a further EUR 345 million by 2020.
In 2014, at a summit in Wales NATO allies agreed to halt defense budget cuts and aim to spend two percent of GDP on their militaries.
But Stoltenberg said there was still a long way to go for that commitment to be fully implemented, although it was understandable that at first defense cuts were stopped and then budgets gradually increased.