{"id":5158,"date":"2026-05-12T15:28:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T12:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=5158"},"modified":"2026-05-12T15:28:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T12:28:00","slug":"mark-rutte-optimistic-about-the-future-of-nato-and-increased-european-defence-spending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=5158","title":{"rendered":"Mark Rutte optimistic about the future of NATO and increased European defence spending"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-path-to-node=\"1\">The Secretary General of <a href=\"https:\/\/tomanifesto.gr\/nato-zmbau\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NATO<\/b> expressed confidence in the Alliance, focusing on strengthening deterrence and maritime security.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"2\"><b data-path-to-node=\"2\" data-index-in-node=\"0\"><b data-path-to-node=\"2\" data-index-in-node=\"81\">Mark Rutte<\/b> expressed confidence in the resilience<\/b> and cohesion of <b>NATO<\/b>, despite intense geopolitical turbulence around the world. During a press conference in <b data-path-to-node=\"2\" data-index-in-node=\"203\">Montenegro<\/b>, <b data-path-to-node=\"2\" data-index-in-node=\"218\">Mark Rutte<\/b> noted that he remains &#8220;<b>extremely optimistic<\/b>&#8221; about the organisation&#8217;s future, while acknowledging the serious challenges in <b data-path-to-node=\"2\" data-index-in-node=\"377\">Middle East<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"2\">Special reference was made to the role European countries are called upon to play in dealing with possible crises in Iran<\/b>, with a focus on ensuring freedom of navigation in the <b data-path-to-node=\"2\" data-index-in-node=\"578\"> Straits of Hormuz<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"3\">Mr. <b>Route<\/b> particularly stressed the need to <b>financially strengthen the military capabilities of Europe<\/b> and <b data-path-to-node=\"3\" data-index-in-node=\"120\">Canada<\/b>, welcoming commitments to a substantial <b data-path-to-node=\"3\" data-index-in-node=\"169\">increase in defence spending<\/b>. <\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"3\">As he explained, the move is imperative to <b>achieve a fairer balance with US<\/b>, but mainly to <b>armor<\/b> the Alliance&#8217;s <b data-path-to-node=\"3\" data-index-in-node=\"335\">deterrent power<\/b> against <b data-path-to-node=\"3\" data-index-in-node=\"380\">Russia,<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The NATO Secretary General expressed his confidence in the Alliance, focusing on strengthening deterrence and the security of sea lanes&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}