NEW YORK, September 4 (RIA Novosti) – This week’s NATO summit is not likely to result in members agreeing to meet a commitment to spend 2 percent of national turnover on defense, analyst Nick Witney told RIA Novosti.
“Europeans took their peace divided at the end of the Cold War, they’ve cut defense further in the economic crisis and don’t feel sufficiently alarmed by what’s happening in Ukraine to be motivated to reverse that very much,” said Witney, from the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Only four of NATO’s European members – Britain, France, Greece and Estonia – come close to meeting a 2006 commitment to spend at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense. NATO leaders are gathered in Wales for a two-day meet, focussed on the Ukraine crisis.
