Speech by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at the Industry Day

Good morning. And also on my behalf - you're already, I think, two days now at NATO Headquarters - but also on my behalf, a warm welcome to NATO Headquarters!

And Tarja, thanks again for what you're doing, and your team, gathering this big bunch of great people here today.

Whether you are now here from large companies or from small start-ups, NATO needs you. That's basically my message. NATO needs you to help keep our one billion people safe.

And that's why engaging with industry representatives is, for me, an absolute priority. We do it all the time. Thanks to Tarja and her team for organising this for me. And of course, the meetings we had in Romania - probably I've seen a few of you also there at the Industry Forum.

And because we need your support, we need your expertise, and we need your creative solutions to address what is basically for all of us clear: the real and growing danger posed by drones.

In recent months, we all have been alerted to this again. Drones have been spotted or crossed into Allied airspace. This was on multiple occasions, including - we have seen it in Denmark, we have seen it in Poland, we have seen it in Romania, in Lithuania and also, by the way, right here in this country, in Belgium.

By hovering near critical infrastructure, they have posed a threat to our military bases and caused serious disruptions to our airports.

Take Vilnius. Vilnius airport, for example, they had to suspend operations at least 10 times since October because of UAS activities, including last night; it was again reported they had to close the airport.

We see drones used in Ukraine, of course, every day as weapons of war. And therefore, for better or worse, drones are here to stay. Growing in quantity, growing in quality. And if there is one clear lesson we are learning from Ukraine - and as you know we try to capture all the lessons from Ukraine through JATEC, our Joint Analysis, Training and Education Centre in Poland, where Ukraine and NATO work together in capturing all the lessons from the war in Ukraine. What we can learn here, and particularly from recent incursions into Allied airspace, it's that we need to be able to respond to this threat, and we must be prepared.

So yes, that means we have to develop and procure advanced air-defence systems - also to effectively basically detect, track and destroy the drones.

And at the same time, we need to produce, and at scale, we need to produce a lot more drones ourselves, and also a lot faster.

NATO Allies - that's the good news - are already making progress. You could even say good progress. I see an increasing number of joint production initiatives both among Allies and also between Allies and Ukraine.

Then of course, we had in June last year the NATO Summit in The Hague, where we agreed a plan to invest 5% of GDP annually in defence by 2035. And then we talk about cash, and that cash is already flowing in. With the money, we are now producing and buying the capabilities our military need to stay safe, including of course the traditional items, the jets, the tanks, the ships, but also the air-defence systems and of course the counter-UAS solutions. Here, interesting number - the capability targets we agreed in summer last year - this was two weeks before the Summit, the Defence Ministers agreed on the capability targets - and there is an increase foreseen of 400%, so five-fold, 400% for surface-based air and missile defence alone. 400%, this is a staggering number. This is one of the reasons why we need to spend the 3,5% to ever get to this level of deterrence and defence.

In response to the Russian drone incursions into Polish airspace last September - you remember in early September, when I think it was 20 drones came into Polish airspace, that was on a Tuesday night, and then on that Friday the Supreme Allied Commander successfully launched 'Eastern Sentry', which is bolstering our air defence and surveillance along the entire eastern flank. This is basically from the Black Sea up to the High North. And there of course we will use the conventional assets, absolutely, but also of course the new technologies. And one of the explicit intentions and goals of Eastern Sentry is to, indeed, as NATO collectively, to become more agile, more successful in using drone technologies and also, of course, counter-UAS solutions.

And then in October, as a follow-up, we launched a Counter-UAS Package of Measures to accelerate and increase initiatives in this field. NATO's role here is to facilitate the delivery of key counter-UAS capabilities. The role of NATO is also to support Allies to test and field what Allies can supply, so basically that's the role for NATO.

And there you could say we are stepping up. But still there is more we can do, absolutely. We are basically not at the beginning. To quote Churchill, we are at the end of the beginning. But we absolutely are not at the beginning of the end. So there is more we need to do, we can do. And we have to do that with you - we have to do that with the industry. Because we can only do that - and I know many of you here are from industry - we need your innovative solutions to counter drone threats, otherwise we cannot do it. I mean, we have great people here, but we need here the input of industry and also your immense capabilities of innovation and of speeding up production.

Because this is my message here, we need your help here to produce what Allies need at scale and also at speed.

So basically - and that's the good news here - we're in this together. And that's why we have these three days here in Brussels and of course this day, and this day is completely focused on industry, Tarja, I believe? Yes.

So the deal is this. On my end, I assure you - this is a top priority - I will continue to urge governments to spend more money, and also to procure as quickly as possible. And I know there have been some complaints in the past that governments might be somewhat slow in getting their procurements in order.

But I can assure you my role has to be to tell the governments, 'You have to spend the money and you have to procure as quickly as possible'. And then, with the industry, we have to see to make sure you have enough safety and security in your investments that you feel secure to do it. But please do it.

And we have to accelerate therefore procurement but also accelerate and stimulate innovation.

But then I need something from you. So this is my part of the deal, I will do this.

But I need from you to be ready, please, to increase your supply, and to expand your production. So where necessary, if you have not, sweat the assets and if possible, put an extra production line where necessary. But sometimes, it's even possible to have extra shifts on the existing production lines, which is of course cheaper and faster.

So please, increase your supply and expand your production. And then I am confident that what you produce will be purchased, because we need these solutions - it's clear, and everybody knows this. There is no debate anymore. We need this for our security. We need this for our security now. We had this huge event in Copenhagen, with the European Political Community and the informal European Council in October, and there were real worries about the drones over Copenhagen, over Denmark. So that's why we need it now but we also need, we know that even more so we need this in the future because this technology - and you guys know much more of this than I do - is also necessary in the future.

So that's the deal. I will do my part with Tarja and the team here at NATO. And please, you from industry, from governments, do your part. Make sure that we make it as easy as possible for industry to innovate and ramp up production, but also for industry, take a little bit of risk. The money is there, you are business people, men and women from industry. I have every confidence in your ability to do that.