In an embarrassing linguistic blunder, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof disclosed the target date for NATO’s planned increase in defence expenditure.

The letter sent to the allied governments by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was classified as secret. However, independent Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof was too reckless. He disclosed the new NATO aim on Friday in The Hague during his weekly Q&A session.

This states that NATO countries must meet the new defence expenditure goal of 5% of economic output by 2032 at the latest.

Unbelievably, Schoof said that Rutte had written to every member state, requesting 3.5 percent for “hard military spending” and 1.5 percent for ancillary expenditures like cybersecurity, infrastructure, and “and similar things”. In addition, he disclosed that the letter was “a good week old”.

Schoof served as the head of the Netherlands’ internal intelligence agency, AIVD, prior to being appointed prime minister.

Rutte refrained from commenting on the new aim during a joint news appearance with Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) in Brussels on Friday. When Rutte replied, “I will not confirm the figures,” “There’s no point in arguing about abstract GDP shares now,” Merz added. “That we continuously expand our efforts in the coming years” was the most important factor.

Merz stated that the quality of defence procurement is equally as important as the quantity of spending. This calls for expanding production and procurement capabilities in addition to the amount of combined weapons systems.

The Netherlands will host the next NATO summit next year. At the 2014 summit in Newport, England, the alliance set a defence budget target of two percent of economic output in response to the Russian annexation of Crimea. Rutte recently stated that the figure needed to be “significantly further north”.

The Netherlands was long considered a classic network nation—thanks in part to its outstanding diplomats. Former Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans served as Vice-President of the European Commission until 2023, and Dutchman Jeroen Dijsselbloem led the EU through the euro crisis as President of the Eurogroup. Recently, however, the government has made several blunders.

Schoof had promised his nation’s sustained support for Ukraine at the EU meeting in Brussels. But the head of the biggest government faction, right-wing populist Geert Wilders, questioned this. The media characterised the acts of high-ranking Dutch officials as “undiplomatic”, citing a Dutch ambassador to a NATO member state as an example.