The leaders of the European Union agreed on Thursday to multiply the spending on security and defense for rearm Europe before the “existential threat” which represents Russia’s aggression over Ukraine and the United States turn with respect to this war from Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
In the text of conclusions agreed, in an extraordinary summit convened by the president of the European Council, António Costa, the twenty -seven are committed to “accelerating the mobilization of the instruments and financing necessary to reinforce the security of the European Union and the protection of its citizens.”
The reinforcement of the European defense was endorsed by all capitals, a unanimous support that, on the contrary, was not reached in the chapter on the Military support to Ukraineof which Hungary unmarked. The heads of state and government support “to continue increasing substantially the expense in the security and defense of Europe”, while supporting the plan to “rearm” the continent that the European Commission recently presented.
Brussels estimates that this strategy You can mobilize up to 800,000 million euros Mainly thanks to the flexibility that will give to the Member States within the community deficit and debt rules, but also with a new credit instrument of 150,000 million financed with joint debt emissions.
In the debate on this new financial tool – whose legal proposal must still present the commission – several delegations have requested that at least part of these resources be granted in the form of subsidies and not only loansamong them Spain and France, according to community sources.
The strategy also proposes to let countries reorient European funds Regional to safety and defense spending and use all the financing capacity of the European Investment Bank in this area. Leaders even identify a series of “priority areas”, which are that of Air Defense and Ballistics, Artillery Systems, Missiles and Ammunition, Drones and Drones Systems, Space Technology and Protection of Critical Infrastructure, Military Mobility, Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence and Electronic War.
“Give, spend and spend”
The urgency of the situation in Ukraine, in particular the perspective of the United States withdrawing the Military support to Kyiv And the need to guarantee the security of the country after an eventual peace agreement, has allowed to overcome the traditional reticence – when non -radical opposition – of some countries to the issuance of European common debt and to relax the fiscal corset to invest.
This is the case of the Nordic ones – Switch, Finland and Denmark – that, together with the Eastern partners who share border with Russia, have become the main defenders of an exponential increase in spending, but also that of Germany, which will suspend their own national public debt limit to undertake an investment program of half a billion euros in defense.
“The most important thing is to be very frank to rearm. I don’t think we have much time: spending, spending and spending on defense and deterrence is the most important message, “said Danish Prime Above the 2 % threshold of GDP required by NATO.
“The decision on these 150,000 million and other proposals (…) is obviously not enough, it is a massive but not enough step,” said Tusk, who considered that it will be inevitable to raise the national expenditure in 3 % defense of GDP. “It’s fine if (other countries) are not ready today, but it is certain that tomorrow we will need a much more intense commitment,” he said.
For his part, the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, asked not to limit himself to giving additional budget margin for a few years but undertake a “long -term” change of the rules so that states can spend in defense “what they consider appropriate.” In this sense, the leaders added in the conclusions a call to the Community Executive to “explore more measures taking into account the opinions” expressed during the summit to increase the expense in defense in “all member states” also guaranteeing the “sustainability of the debt.”
Source: Lasexta
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