Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni received the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, in Rome, who arrived at Palazzo Chigi shortly before lunch. The meeting lasted an hour and had been announced in recent days by the Alliance itself. At the center of the meeting, explains Chigi in a note, “the current issues of the Atlantic agenda in the context of the preparation of the NATO Summit in Washington in July”: Meloni in particular “reaffirmed the Italian expectation that decisions can be adopted in Washington concrete in response to the challenges characterizing the Southern flank, in coherence with the 360-degree approach to Euro-Atlantic security envisaged by the NATO Strategic Concept”.
Military spending: the crux of 2% of GDP
The issue of military spending is fundamental, as he writes AdnKronos: NATO has long been asking member states to reach 2% of GDP. Objective shared by Defense Minister Guido Crosetto, who however maintained the 2028 date for its achievement, already set by previous executives. Late, for the Alliance.
The war in Ukraine
Then there are the other big dossiers, such as the war in Ukraine. On the one hand, tension is growing between the Kremlin and the Western front, with the specter of direct involvement in the conflict that some countries – France in the lead – continue to evoke more and more frequently. On the other hand, the next steps on the war front remain an unknown: Kiev is asking to release more military aid and to do it quickly.
