BRUSSELS, December 12. /TASS/. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, for the first time, proposed allocating part of pensions and social payments in Europe toward weapons production, thus signaling that the alliance's military spending should exceed 3% of GDP during a speech at the European department of the Carnegie Endowment.

According to the secretary-general, European countries spend a quarter of their money on pensions and social benefits, and they just need to use some of those funds to build strong defenses. Rutte also made it clear that military spending by NATO member states should exceed 3% of GDP, saying that "during the Cold War, Europeans spent far more than 3% of their GDP on defense" to win.

This is the first time since the end of the Cold War that a NATO secretary-general proposes to direct social funds to the alliance's military needs.