Security and defence high on the agenda as Mark Carney attends EU and NATO summits

National Post

3 hours ago

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At the NATO summit, Carney will take part in bilateral meetings with other leaders. The summit agenda includes a social dinner hosted by the king and queen of the Netherlands and a two-and-a-half-hour meeting of the North Atlantic Council.
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NATO allies are expected to debate a plan to hike alliance members' defence spending target to five per cent of national GDP. NATO data shows that in 2024, none of its 32 members spent that much.
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The Canadian government official who briefed reporters on background says the spending target and its timeline are still up for discussion, though some allies have indicated they would prefer a seven-year timeline while others favour a decade.
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Canada hasn't hit a five-per-cent defence spending threshold since the 1950s and hasn't reached the two per cent mark since the late 1980s.
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NATO says that, based on its estimate of which expenditures count toward the target, Canada spent $41 billion in 2024 on defence, or 1.37 per cent of GDP. That's more than twice what it spent in 2014, when the two per cent target was first set; that year, Canada spent $20.1 billion, or 1.01 per cent of GDP, on defence.
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In 2014, only three NATO members achieved the two per cent target — the U.S., the U.K., and Greece. In 2025, all members are expected to hit it.
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Any agreement to adopt a new spending benchmark must be ratified by all 32 NATO member states.
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Former Canadian ambassador to NATO Kerry Buck told The Canadian Press the condensed agenda is likely meant to 'avoid public rifts among allies,' describing Trump as an 'uncertainty engine.'
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'The national security environment has really, really shifted,' Buck said, adding allies next door to Russia face the greatest threats. 'There is a high risk that the U.S. would undercut NATO at a time where all allies are increasingly vulnerable.'
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Trump has suggested the U.S. might abandon its mutual defence commitment to the alliance if member countries don't ramp up defence spending.
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'Whatever we can do to get through this NATO summit with few public rifts between the U.S. and other allies on anything, and satisfy a very long-standing U.S. demand to rebalance defence spending, that will be good for Canada because NATO's good for Canada,' Buck said.
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Carney has already made two trips to Europe this year — the first to London and Paris to meet with European allies and the second to Rome to attend the inaugural mass of Pope Leo XIV.
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