Brussels, 26 May 2025 (dpa/MIA) - NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte expects members of the alliance to agree to raise their defence expenditure to 5% of economic output, he said on Monday at a gathering in the United States.

A new target is set to be agreed at the NATO summit in the Dutch city of The Hague in June. An increase in spending would require a massive financial commitment by NATO countries.

"We need this, because otherwise we will never, ever achieve the capability goals we need to achieve," Rutte told the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Dayton, Ohio.

Rutte said he expects that a higher target for defence spending will be agreed at the summit – "a total of 5%."

According to the NATO head, of that, significantly more than 3% would go towards traditional defence spending – internal documents mention 3.5%. The rest could go towards defence-related spending, such as military infrastructure, including railway lines, tank-compatible bridges and expanded ports.

Rutte's call echoes demands made by Washington for Western countries to depend less on the US for security and to invest more in their own defence.

His comments come nearly two weeks after a NATO foreign ministers' meeting in Turkey, where Germany backed the demand by US President Donald Trump that NATO members increase defence spending to 5% of their gross domestic product.

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said the share of defence spending in Germany's economic output is to rise by 0.2 percentage points per year over a period of five to seven years.

Based on last year's figure of 2.1%, it could then reach 3.5% by 2032.