NATO Defence Industry Forum – The Hugue NL 2025.

Substantial steps forward to strengthen Defence Industry Cooperation

The NATO Summit Defence Industry Forum (NSDIF), held in The Hague on 24 June 2025, brought together defence ministers, industry leaders and experts from across the Alliance and beyond. With a strong focus on accelerating defence industry readiness, the Forum delivered a number of concrete outcomes and agreements to reinforce cooperation between NATO, Allies and industry.

Key deliverables announced at NSDIF include:

1. Public release of NATO’s Defence Production Action Plan (DPAP)
   For the first time, NATO has released a public version of its Defence Production Action Plan. This document outlines NATO’s vision for aggregating demand, strengthening production capacity and increasing interoperability across the Alliance. By sharing it publicly, NATO provides greater transparency to industry, enabling businesses to align investments and production capacity with NATO’s capability targets.
2. Industry Ambition Statement
   Representatives of 32 transatlantic business associations of NATO Allies – which include major contractors, SMEs and start-ups – issued a joint statement expressing their commitment to closer cooperation with NATO. The statement highlights the sector’s intention to scale up production, accelerate innovation and support collective defence goals.
3. DIANA reaches full operational capability
   DIANA, NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator, was declared fully operational. Connecting innovators with defence end-users across the Alliance, as well as corporates and investors, DIANA now supports dozens of companies – such as Dutch start-up Lobster Robotic – in developing cutting-edge technologies with dual-use applications.
4. Intent to jointly stockpile critical raw materials
   Twelve NATO Allies, including the Netherlands, signed a Letter of Intent to cooperate on the stockpiling of critical raw materials vital to the defence sector. This step aims to reduce dependency on external suppliers and secure access to essential components for industrial production.
5. Expansion of the Multinational MRTT Fleet
   Denmark and Sweden formally joined the Multinational Multi Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) programme, contributing flight hours and signing a contract for two additional A330 MRTT aircraft. With the Netherlands and Luxembourg as lead nations, the programme now comprises 12 aircraft stationed across the Netherlands, Germany and, soon, Denmark.
6. Rapid Adoption Action Plan (RAAP)
   The Rapid Adoption Action Plan, including its political commitment and pilot programmes, aims to significantly accelerate the pace at which the Alliance adopts new technological products at the speed of relevance, in most cases within 24 months. It provides Allies with shared objectives and best practices, underpinned by NATO support, to accelerate procurement and integration, de-risk newtechnological products, and ensure that new technological products are better tailored to Allied defence needs.
7. Innovation Ranges collaboration agreement
   Several Allies signed a Letter of Intent to formalise cooperation on NATO Innovation Ranges: environments used to test and scale up defence technologies. These Ranges will enable Allies and NATO to test, refine, and validate new technological products in real operational environments, in close cooperation between end users and innovators. They will ensure that effective, safe and trusted solutions are put in the hands of our warfighters, maintaining NATO’s technological edge. The Dutch-led SeaSec initiative is among the pilot projects involved.
8. NATO’s Commercial Space Strategy
   NATO has released a public version of its Commercial Space Strategy, which outlines how the Alliance intends to strengthen cooperation with commercial space providers. By removing barriers and clarifying procedures, the strategy enables safer and more effective collaboration between the space industry and NATO. This is an important signal to the commercial space sector, opening the door to greater innovation, shared capabilities, and improved resilience in the space domain.
9. Thematic sessions lead to concrete follow-up
   Throughout the day, expert sessions addressed pressing topics such as capability needs, supply chain security, access to finance, unmanned systems, and space and hybrid threats. One of the conclusions was that public-private collaboration requires a basis of mutual trust, which could be achieved by developing a common understanding and a shared approach. A further conclusion was the need for stakeholders to jointly deregulate and simplify compliance requirements, in particular with regard to public procurement, in order to speed up delivery of capabilities.

Moving forward

The NSDIF reaffirmed NATO’s ambition to scale up defence production, deepen collaboration between NATO, governments, industry and partners, and ensure collective resilience in a more contested security environment. The Forum’s outcomes now feed into the broader NATO agenda on defence innovation, industrial capacity and long-term readiness.

Scaling up together: NATO and industry unite at NSDIF

On June 24 The NATO Summit Defence Industry Forum (NSDIF) brought together political and industry leaders for a high-level plenary session.

The session opened with a keynote address by Netherlands Minister of Defence H.E. Mr. Ruben Brekelmans, who emphasized the urgent need to scale up and strengthen Europe’s industrial readiness.

‘Historic day’
“Tomorrow marks a historic day. A historic day for NATO. A historic day for our collective security. And a historic day for our defence industry”, Brekelmans said, urging all 32 NATO Allies to agree on the 5% of GDP Hague Defence Investment Pledge within 24 hours.

Brekelmans: “This week’s events in the Middle East have only underscored the growing instability in our world – and the urgent need to strengthen our defence and scale up our defence industry. Now is the time to deliver.”

Resilience
This was followed by a moderated discussion between NATO Secretary General H.E. Mr. Mark Rutte and European Commission President H.E. Ms. Ursula von der Leyen. Their dialogue focused on the deepening cooperation between NATO and the EU and the critical role of industry in maintaining long-term defence resilience.

“There is an ancient Roman saying: if you want peace, prepare for war. Make your defence so strong, that no one dares to attack you. Today NATO’s military edge is being aggressively challenged by a rapidly rearming Russia, backed by Chinese technology and armed with Iranian and North Korean weapons”, said Rutte. “Therefore we need to unite, innovate and deliver. That is exactly what this Forum is about.”

Frontline in Ukraine
Von der Leyen added:

“The future of Europe is being written on the frontline in Ukraine. But not only there, it is also being written in your factories”, directly addressing the many key players from the defence industry in the audience. “In record time you have managed to open new lines and step up production. You are adapting to the new reality of a full-scale war.”

But Rutte also highlighted the barriers that NATO and the EU must tackle in order to strengthen and accelerate the rearming of NATO allies. “What I have learned over the years: NATO and the EU are difficult beasts, because you have unanimity, you have many different point of views. So perfection is not to be achieved. Because for perfection you need too much time and nothing will happen in the meantime. So what we are doing now is working together in the spirit of keeping speed”, the NATO Secretary General explained.

Industry Ambition Statement
The plenary session also featured the presentation of the Industry Ambition Statement to the NATO Secretary General. The statement, signed by industry associations from all 32 NATO member countries, outlines concrete commitments from the transatlantic business community to support NATO’s Defence Industrial Capacity Expansion Pledge.

The statement was presented by Ms. Ingrid Thijssen (President of the Confederation of Netherlands Industry and Employers, VNO-NCW), on behalf of Markus Beyrer (Business Europe), Keith Webster (US Chamber of Commerce) and David Pierce (Canadian Chamber of Commerce).

Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Later in the session, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine addressed the forum, emphasizing the critical importance of strengthening defence industry cooperation across borders and accelerating production to meet urgent operational needs. He called for continued unity among allies and long-term investment in security and innovation. President Zelenskyy’s appearance underscored the deepening partnership between Ukraine and NATO, highlighting their shared commitment to building a more resilient and responsive defence ecosystem.

Together
He reminded everyone of the importance of cooperation: “We all understand that the source of this war and the long-term threat to the European way of life is Russia. In reality we are facing a network of state and non-state actors. This network includes Russia, North Korea, the current regime in Iran and Chinese companies that produce weapons and carry out operations against our country, our people and our Europe. Only together can we counter this.”

The session marked a clear call to action: aligning industrial capabilities with geopolitical realities requires sustained commitment, shared investment and deeper cooperation between member states, institutions and industry.

Minister Brekelmans reflects on key outcomes of NSDIF

As the NATO Summit Defence Industry Forum draws to a close, Netherlands Minister of Defence Ruben Brekelmans shared a short statement reflecting on the day’s key takeaways.

He addressed two important outcomes of the forum, highlighting their relevance for NATO’s defence industrial cooperation and future readiness.

“It was a great day with good progress. We came to new agreements and specific contracts with the defence industry to ramp up production”, concluded Brekelmans. “Secondly, we announced a new support package for Ukraine.“

The NATO Summit Defence Industry Forum 2025 brought together leaders from across government, industry and NATO to discuss how to strengthen defence production and transatlantic cooperation.