NATO defence push already strains Europe's budgets

LONDON, July 6: NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte will insist at this week's alliance summit that member states are keeping their promise to boost defence spending. Yet progress has been uneven and the push is already stretching some national budgets.

Under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, members of the 32-country military pact agreed at last year's summit to boost defence spending to 5% of GDP by 2035 - just over double the overall level for European states and Canada in 2025.

But since then, two camps have emerged: one is led by Germany and the mostly Nordic and eastern European nations which have found the fiscal space to raise spending; in the other are several big players struggling to do the same.�" REUTERS