OREANDA-NEWS. NATO defence ministers will meet tomorrow (29 June 2017) to take forward decisions to more fairly share the burden of our security and to fight terrorism.

Ahead of the meeting, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced that defence spending across the Alliance is expected to grow by 4.3% in 2017. “That is three consecutive years of accelerating defence spending. This means, over the last three years, European Allies and Canada spent almost 46 billion US dollars more on defence,” he said.

To help combat terrorism, NATO is now fully integrated into the information-sharing and decision-making structures of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. “We have already stepped up our support with more flight-time and information sharing by our AWACS surveillance aircraft,” said Mr. Stoltenberg. At NATO Headquarters, a new Hybrid Branch and a Terrorism Intelligence Cell are operational and NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller will coordinate the Alliance’s anti-terrorism efforts.