{"id":2364,"date":"2026-07-07T11:36:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T11:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/2364\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T11:36:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T11:36:15","slug":"natos-rutte-calls-for-bonfire-of-red-tape-in-arms-procurement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/2364\/","title":{"rendered":"NATO&#8217;s Rutte calls for &#8216;bonfire of red tape&#8217; in arms procurement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">NATO Secretary Mark Rutte urged allies to slash administrative hurdles to rapidly expanding the alliance&#8217;s defence capabilities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;We need a bonfire of red tape in our procurement and in our cross-border regulation,&#8221; Rutte said on Tuesday at an arms industry fair in Ankara which is part of the alliance&#8217;s annual leaders&#8217; summit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Both government and industry must continue investing in production capacity. Governments must also create the conditions for industry to expand and cooperate,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In 2025, European allies and Canada reported an annual increase in their defence expenditure of 20%, or an extra $139 billion, Rutte said, but industrial capacities would have to grow rapidly to meet the growing demand.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">NATO is also to release &#8220;for the first time a consolidated demand signal outlining our requirements,&#8221; Rutte said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">NATO allies aim to spend 5% of gross domestic product (GDP) on defence and related expenses by 2035 in a bid to quickly boost defence capacity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The race to rearm is meant to put NATO in a better position to respond to the threat posed by Russia, and to keep up with the armament efforts by other global players.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;We are moving in the right direction. The strategy is clear, but the match is far from over. And to win it, we need all team members to pull their weight,&#8221; Rutte said.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte arrives to attend the NATO Summit Defence Industry Forum in Ankara. (is associated with: \u00abNATO's Rutte calls for 'bonfire of red tape' in arms procurement\u00bb) Emmi Korhonen\/Lehtikuva\/dpa\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"639\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/dc33d57779c8585794fcf33939d3c3e1.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte arrives to attend the NATO Summit Defence Industry Forum in Ankara. (is associated with: \u00abNATO&#8217;s Rutte calls for &#8216;bonfire of red tape&#8217; in arms procurement\u00bb) Emmi Korhonen\/Lehtikuva\/dpa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NATO Secretary Mark Rutte urged allies to slash administrative hurdles to rapidly expanding the alliance&#8217;s defence capabilities. &#8220;We&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[83,1637,1638,1639,14,880,243,1484,1636],"class_list":["post-2364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-arms-industry","tag-arms-procurement","tag-bonfire","tag-defence-capabilities","tag-defence-industry","tag-mark-rutte","tag-nato","tag-nato-allies","tag-red-tape"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}