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The Netherlands will announce defence agreements and plans exceeding €3 billion ($3.43 billion) at the NATO Summit in Ankara on Tuesday, Dutch Defence Minister Dilan Yesilgoz told Reuters, as alliance members race to demonstrate increased military spending ahead of a high-stakes summit.
Yesilgoz, speaking to Reuters in the Turkish capital on Monday, said the package would include a partnership with Belgium on air defence and a separate agreement with Britain covering naval vessels. She added that the Netherlands was also seeking to deepen joint defence projects with Germany.
"For the Netherlands, it will be well over 3 billion euros that we will have new, not only pledges, but concrete plans," Yesilgoz said.
The announcements are part of a coordinated effort by NATO members to signal stepped-up defence investment at the Ankara Summit, which precedes the alliance's formal summit beginning Tuesday evening with a leaders' dinner.
The summit's main business, a session of the North Atlantic Council, the alliance's highest decision-making body, is scheduled for Wednesday.
The Ankara gathering comes amid sustained pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly questioned America's commitment to NATO and pushed member states to significantly raise their defence contributions.
Trump will join the leaders of the alliance's 31 other member states at the summit.
When asked whether she was confident Washington would remain an engaged NATO partner despite Trump's public doubts about the alliance, Yesilgoz offered a measured response.
"I have to be confident, because I know that we need each other," she said, adding that mutual security interests bound the allies together regardless of political signals from Washington.
The minister also framed European rearmament as a structural shift rather than a reaction to any single administration.
She described it as "healthy for Europe to invest more in its own defence and defence industries regardless of who is at the White House at the moment."
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The Dutch announcements reflect a wider trend across NATO's European members, which have been accelerating defence spending following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
NATO's benchmark calls on members to spend at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defence, a target many European allies failed to meet for years but are now moving toward, or beyond, under renewed urgency.
The Netherlands has been among the European allies seeking to reinforce bilateral and multilateral defence-industrial cooperation, viewing joint procurement and production arrangements as a way to generate greater capability at scale while managing costs.
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