October 1, 2024
On Sunday 29 and Monday 30 September, members of the Committee for Foreign Affairs, Defense and Development Aid (BDO) paid a working visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels. On Sunday evening, the senators were received at the Dutch residence by Thijs van der Plas, Permanent Representative to NATO. Monday was marked by meetings with British and American representatives and senior officials, including Boris Ruge, NATO’s acting deputy secretary general.
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The war in Ukraine was an important topic, European support for Ukraine and growing criticism of the role of countries such as China in this conflict. The conversation included NATO’s strategy for new escalations, including those worldwide, and the 2% standard that not all NATO member states yet meet. In addition, the American involvement in NATO was discussed, now and after the elections in November 2024. The meaning of ‘Article 5’ was discussed in detail. This article establishes the principle of collective defense: an attack on one of the NATO member states is an attack against all and obliges member states to assist the attacked member state. The conversation also focused on cooperation between the European Union and NATO in the field of defense and the importance of international, NATO-led peacekeeping forces such as KFOR in Kosovo. The start of NATO’s new Secretary General as of October 1, former Prime Minister Mark Rutte, was also discussed in the discussions. Finally, the harvest from the NATO summit in Washington on June 10 and 11, 2024 and the preparations for and agenda of the upcoming NATO summit in June 2025 in The Hague were discussed.
The visit was led by committee chairman Koen Petersen (VVD). The following senators also participated from the BDO committee: Fatimazhra Belhirch (D66), Robert Croll (BBB), Math Goossen (BBB), Ingrid Visseren-Hamakers (PvdD), Eddy Hartog (Volt), Tineke Huizinga (Christian Union), Henk Marquart Scholtz (BBB), Randy Martens (GroenLinks-PvdA), Bastiaan van Apeldoorn (SP), Karin van Bijsterveld (JA21), Auke van der Goot (OPNL), Robert van Gasteren (BBB), Martin van Rooijen (50PLUS) and Gom van Strien (PVV).
