LONDON, May 13. /TASS/. Leading EU countries and the European Commission following a meeting in London said they were intent on making every effort to strengthen the role of NATO and the bloc’s military capabilities.
"We will use all feasible levers to strengthen our collective defense capability and production and reinforce Europe’s technological and industrial base," the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the UK, along with the top EU diplomat, said in a statement following the talks.
"European countries must play a still greater role in assuring our own security. We will further strengthen NATO and the contribution of European Allies by stepping up security and defence expenditure to meet the requirement to deter and defend across all domains in the Euro-Atlantic area," the statement said.
The countries also pledged to continue providing weapons to Ukraine, enhance its defense industry capacity and explore the creation of a "coalition of air, land and maritime reassurance forces" and could support the regeneration of Ukraine’s armed forces, according to the document.
Foreign ministers from NATO countries are scheduled to convene in Turkey from May 14-15. A source told TASS earlier that the meeting will focus on preparations for the NATO summit in The Hague in June. NATO members could agree during that event to raise their military spending from the current 2% of GDP to 5% by 2032. This would roughly correspond to the level of defense spending they maintained during the Cold War.