00:00In the speech by Pete Haxith, the Secretary of War of the U.S., he talked about how there are
00:04great benefits for allies that help themselves.
00:09It seems to be a dig for Europe and NATO. How do you assess what's been relayed by Pete Haxith?
00:17Well, this is nothing new. We had a message, loud and clear, a long time ago.
00:25I think that we react. I mean, we had a commitment, a strong commitment in The Hague to reach 5
00:32% by 2035.
00:35We are on that path. We are progreding on that. We are just doing it.
00:38We have a NATO defense planning process to give us the capability that we need, and we will acquire that
00:45in time.
00:46So I think we are in good shape.
00:48And, of course, we as a military side, we don't have any drama going on.
00:55It does seem like there's a lot of aggression in the comments.
01:00He talked about how Europe and NATO are weak, delusional, plagued perhaps by immigration.
01:07Do you think those comments are justified?
01:08Well, I think that in the past there has not been the proper balancing of responsibility, of burden sharing, financing,
01:21and also, I mean, authorities' responsibility.
01:23We are moving on the good direction.
01:26Now, I think that a good reassessment and redistribution of responsibility and burden sharing is necessary.
01:36But we are on that pathway, and I'm satisfied the way the alliance is responding.
01:43What are you willing to do, and where are the red lines?
01:46Because we've been told that drone attacks, for instance, have escalated.
01:51Is that not enough to prompt a response from NATO?
01:56Again, a strong and mature alliance needs to be able to handle also the escalation.
02:02I mean, we need to manage that.
02:05We need not to overreact.
02:08We need to, first of all, try to set, I mean, dialogue, if you can, just to clear up, just
02:17to be sure that it is a mistake and not an aggression.
02:21Something is happening right now.
02:23And that's basically it.
02:25I mean, an attack is going to start Article 5.
02:29You know that Article 5 has already been called by the United States after 9-11.
02:34And we answer pretty quickly.
02:38So that's the way it could happen.
02:42.
02:42.
02:42.
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