NATO Secretary General with the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defence of Bulgaria 🇧🇬, 19 DEC 2024

Joint press statements by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria, Ivan Kondov and the Minister of Defence of Bulgaria, Atanas Zapryanov, 19 December 2024.

🗣 | NATO Secretary General:

Dear Atanas and dear Ivan,

I am delighted to be here in Bulgaria.
And to meet with the troops serving as part of NATO’s forward land forces here in Bulgaria.

Your country plays a key role in our security in the Black Sea and beyond.

This multinational battlegroup in Novo Selo is exercising the ability to scale up to brigade size.

Supporting NATO security on the eastern flank.

And sending a clear message that we are there to defend our nations together.

I am happy to say that Bulgaria is, at this moment, spending at least 2% of GDP. It is even spending more than 2% of GDP as we agreed a couple of years ago.

All our Nations are confronted with deficits in the national budget. It is crucial that we will make sure that we keep defence spending as high as possible.

I would say this could, it is even higher than 2% we have to do more. But again, I am so happy that Bulgaria is at 2%.

I call all Allies to step up and to spend more and to make sure that we also produce more in terms of defence industrial production.
Bulgaria is also helping Ukraine to defend against the Russian aggression.

And I want to thank you for your great contribution to help Ukraine to be able, one day to start talks on a peace deal from a position of strength, and that is what we need to achieve.

What Bulgaria is doing is making Bulgaria stronger, but it is also making the whole of the Alliance stronger and safer.

So, thank you to Bulgaria for your enormous contribution to our shared security.

Thank you.


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