NATO Secretary General Pleas For Defense Spending Effort

[Lex]

NATO Secretary General Pleas For Defense Spending Effort

By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, BRATISLAVA
Posted 10/30/06 12:34

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer called on alliance members to boost their defense spending to at least 2 percent of gross domestic product during a brief visit to Slovakia on Oct. 30.
"Only seven of the 26 NATO members already reach this percentage. So I make this plea not only in Bratislava but in numerous NATO member capitals. It is important for the future of NATO," de Hoop Scheffer said during a joint press conference with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico.
A former Soviet bloc satellite and NATO member since 2004, Slovakia counts on spending 1.6 percent of its GDP on defense in its 2007 budget.
The secretary general said he wanted NATO's upcoming summit in Riga, scheduled for November 28 and 29, to give "a positive signal" to candidate countries. These include Ukraine, Georgia and and a series of Balkan states.
"Candidate countries will be invited to become NATO members at the stage when they fulfill the criteria," he added without detailing a clearer timetable.
NATO's extension to include the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia has annoyed Russia, which already had difficulty accepting an earlier wave of the alliance's eastward enlargement.
De Hoop Scheffer left Bratislava for Prague, where he was due to meet with President Vaclav Klaus and members of the current Czech caretaker government.