IT’S ALL IN THE NAME. What’s the right word to describe NATO’s new 5% target? “This is not going to be just a pledge. This is going to be a commitment,” according to Matthew Whitaker, the US ambassador to NATO. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte prefers to call it a “plan” for now. The detail may go unnoticed, but within the walls of NATO HQ, names matter (remember the NSATU-UNITE debate last year?). NATO's current 2% target has long been described as a “pledge”, and it took most countries a decade to make good on it. Coincidence? The US, at least, thinks not.
INDUSTRY PLEDGE. As part of NATO's revised Defence Production Action Plan, allies will have to report on progress they’ve made in increasing defence industrial production by the summit, according to a document seen by Euractiv. The data will be compiled into a report that gives an overview of available production capacity and shares best practices for procurement.
NATO STARTUP CASH. NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) published its 2026 list of 10 “challenges” on Monday, for which startups and SMEs propose new military-civilian technologies. Topics include resilient space operations, maritime operations, critical infrastructure and logistics. Companies will have until 11 June to apply, with selected firms receiving €100,000 and access to testing facilities across Europe and North America for work on their projects.
HYBRID THREATS GUIDELINES. NATO wants its members to take hybrid attacks – like cyber threats or disruption of critical infrastructure – more seriously, and alliance staff plan to issue new guidelines, a senior official of the military alliance said this week. The alliance and its members have been wondering how to address such threats after several high-profile incidents in the past year. But the issue is tricky, given how difficult it is to identify the perpetrators, and because hybrid attacks usually don’t fall under the classic definition of warfare.
WHERE’S THE INVITE? With less than three weeks to go until that NATO summit, it remains unclear whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy will be a guest at all, much less whether he'll score invites for anything more than side-events. That’s because of US concerns about what impact a Ukrainian invite will have on the Moscow and the prospects of peace talks, people have told Euractiv over the past month. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte did say on Wednesday that Ukraine will have a presence of some type at the summit.
NATO’s DOGE MOMENT? The alliance's top leadership is undergoing major changes, with cuts to high-level positions and rationalisation of the number of expert groups, according to people informed of the plans. Allies want to avoid duplication and wasted resources with a more efficient management structure focused on core defence tasks. Here’s hoping the effort is more successful than the chaotic Elon Musk-led effort to slash and burn through American bureaucracy. The move comes after revelations of alleged corruption in the alliance’s procurement agency. | 
