Polish President Says 'Bucharest Nine' Member States Want Enhanced NATO Presence

European countries on NATO's eastern flank known as the Bucharest Nine want the military alliance to enhance its presence on their territories, Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Tuesday

WARSAW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 06th June, 2023) European countries on NATO's eastern flank known as the Bucharest Nine want the military alliance to enhance its presence on their territories, Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Tuesday.

"We had discussions about our safety, the safety of the Bucharest Nine, and in the context of the upcoming NATO summit. We undoubtedly want the safety of our part of Europe to be constantly reinforced, primarily by the presence of our allies," he said at the Bucharest Nine's summit in Bratislava.

The Polish president said all Bucharest Nine member states, which have hosted allied contingents since 2016, want significantly more NATO troops deployed.

"We want brigade combat groups instead of battalion groups. We, the Bucharest Nine, would like those brigade combat groups to establish permanent presence rather than carry out troop buildup in the event of a threat," he said.

Duda also called on NATO allies to ramp up defense spending above the target 2% of their respective gross domestic products (GDP).

In February, he said that Poland intended to increase its defense budget to over 4% of GDP.

"It is necessary to fulfill our obligations. The target 2% of GDP must be a minimum. We are convinced that this must be the minimum, which the defense budgets of the NATO member states must surpass," he said.

The Bucharest Nine includes Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. The format was founded in 2015 in Romania, at the initiative of Duda and Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, and aimed at developing military cooperation between the nine states. The previous summit of the organization took place in February in Warsaw. US President Joe Biden and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also participated in the meeting. The parties discussed NATO's and the EU's "open door policy" for Ukraine and the alliance's reinforced military presence on its eastern flank.