US defence chief Pete Hegseth will seek on Thursday to drive home a deal on ramping up NATO defence spending that can satisfy President Donald Trump at a summit later this month.
Trump has demanded that alliance members agree to boost defence spending to five percent of their GDP at the June 24-25 meeting in the Netherlands.
NATO chief Mark Rutte has put forward a compromise agreement for 3.5 percent of GDP on core military spending by 2032, and 1.5 percent on broader security-related areas such as infrastructure.
Multiple diplomats say that Rutte looks on track to secure the deal for the summit in The Hague, but that some allies are still hesitant about committing to such spending.
Most vocal in its reluctance is Spain, which is only set to reach NATO's current target of two percent of GDP by the end of this year.
Diplomats say that other countries are also haggling over making the timeline longer and dropping a demand for core defence spending to increase by 0.2 percentage points each year.
‘Acceptable compromise’
But the deal appears to be an acceptable compromise to most that will allow Trump to claim that he has achieved his headline demand while, in reality, setting the bar lower for struggling European allies.
"We have to find a realistic compromise between what is necessary and what is really possible to spend," German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on Wednesday.
Countries remain divided over the timeline for a new pledge.
"There's not unlimited time," US ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker told reporters on Wednesday.
A 2032 target is "definitely too late", Lithuanian Defence Minister Dovile Sakaliene said on Wednesday, arguing for a target of 2030 at the latest.
There is also an ongoing debate over how to define "defence-related" spending, which might include spending on cybersecurity and certain types of infrastructure.
"The aim is to find a definition that is precise enough to cover only real security-related investments and at the same time broad enough to allow for national specifics," said one NATO diplomat.
