NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte called on Allies, partners and industry to “unite, innovate and deliver” to ensure the Alliance is able to “win this new war of production.”
Speaking at the June 2025 NATO Summit defense industry forum in The Hague, Rutte emphasized the significant steps the Alliance is taking to strengthen its defense industrial capacity, increase cooperation, enhance innovation and expand hundreds of new and existing production lines. “There’s no defense without a strong defense industry, and there’s no European security without a strong trans-Atlantic bond,” he said.
Joined onstage by European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen, Rutte welcomed the European Union’s Readiness 2030 plan that promises to unleash up to $900 billion for defense and encouraged the removal of barriers to trans-Atlantic defense cooperation.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also spoke at the event and urged further security assistance and increased defense industrial cooperation between NATO Allies and Ukraine. Zelenskyy highlighted Ukraine’s growing defense industry and its world-leading drone production in particular as an attractive basis for further collaboration.
The NATO Summit defense industry forum brought together defense ministers, industry leaders and experts from across the Alliance and beyond to identify practical solutions to strengthen trans-Atlantic defense industrial cooperation, boost production capacity, support innovation and harness the potential of the commercial space sector.
At the start of the event, business leaders from Europe and North America presented the secretary-general with an ambition statement, reflecting their collective commitment to support NATO’s Industrial Capacity Expansion Pledge for the “prosperity, security and resilience of the Transatlantic economy and society.” NATO also released its first public version of the updated Defence Production Action Plan, which outlines NATO’s commitment to aggregate demand, boost capacity and strengthen engagement with industry.