The European Commission today presented its long-awaited \u201cWhite Paper on European Defence\u201d \u2013 a plan for rearmament of Europe, which the Commission calls \u201cEuropean Defence Readiness 2030\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the document, Europe must urgently and rapidly rearmament by 2030 to have a strong defence posture and a \u201ccredible deterrent\u201d. \u201cWe are at a crucial moment for European security and a crucial moment for action,\u201d said EU High Representative Kaja Kalas, while Defence Commissioner Andrius Kuppilis pointed out that \u201cif we want peace, we must prepare for war\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the Defence Commissioner, the plan has four main priorities:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1.<\/strong> The first is to increase defence spending. The Commission presented the \u201cReArm Europe\u201d plan two weeks ago to mobilise \u20ac800 billion in investment in European defence. This plan includes a new instrument \u2013 \u200b\u200bcalled \u201cSAFE\u201d \u2013 that can quickly provide Member States with \u20ac150 billion in loans for defence investment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, the Commission is proposing to activate the so-called \u201cNational Escape Clause\u201d to give Member States more flexibility to spend more on defence without breaching the budgetary rules that limit the deficit to 3% of GDP. This has the potential to mobilise additional defence spending of up to 1.5% of GDP, or around \u20ac650 billion over the next four years. At the same time, the Commission is working to mobilise private financing \u2013 either from the EIB or the capital markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2.<\/strong> The second priority is to close the gaps in Europe\u2019s defence capabilities by 2030, which should be done \u201cin a European way\u201d, as the White Paper points out. This means \u201clarge-scale, pan-European cooperation\u201d to address gaps in priority areas such as military mobility, investment in air and missile defence, artillery systems, ammunition and missiles, drones, the use of military artificial intelligence or quantum computing, etc. Today, the majority of defence investment is going outside Europe and this trend must change, starting with investment in Europe, the White Paper points out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3.<\/strong> The third priority concerns strengthening Europe’s defence industrial base. Today, it still has structural weaknesses: it is not yet able to produce defence systems and equipment in the quantities and speed needed by Member States and remains too fragmented with dominant national players supplying domestic markets. According to the Commission, companies need a steady flow of multi-year orders to drive their investments. To this end, a “European Military Sales Mechanism” will be created, as the Commission President has stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4.<\/strong> The fourth and “most strategic” priority for European defence is Ukraine. As the Commission President has stated, \u201cwe must make Ukraine strong enough \u2013 like a \u2018steel hedgehog\u2019 \u2013 to be indigestible to a potential invader.\u201d The EU has already invested around \u20ac50 billion in military support and has trained more than 73,000 Ukrainian soldiers, while support for Ukraine\u2019s EU accession perspective remains strong. The Commission announced that a joint Task Force will be set up with Ukraine, which will coordinate EU and Member States\u2019 military support. The aim is to invest in Ukraine\u2019s defence and military capabilities and to accelerate the integration of its defence industry into the European defence equipment market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Security through partnerships<\/p>\n\n\n\n Through the White Paper, in the paragraph \u201cEnhanced security through partnerships\u201d, the Commission leaves the door open to partnerships with third countries. This includes Turkey, which is also mentioned as a potential partner in these defense initiatives, subject to respect for the decisions of the European Council of April 2024. Potential partners are also considered to be Britain, Canada and Norway, as well as all \u201clike-minded Europeans\u201d, the Enlargement countries and neighboring countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In particular, for Turkey, the following is mentioned:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTurkey is a candidate country for EU membership and a long-term partner in the field of the Common Security and Defense Policy. The EU will continue to engage constructively to develop a mutually beneficial partnership in all areas of common interest based on an equal commitment on the part of Turkey to pursue a path of cooperation on all issues of importance to the EU, in line with the conclusions of the European Council of April 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In general, it is noted that \u201csecurity challenges often have global implications, requiring international cooperation\u201d, that \u201cRussia\u2019s full-scale war against Ukraine has wide-ranging repercussions beyond Europe\u201d and therefore, \u201ccooperation with partners is crucial to address European defence challenges and to diversify suppliers and reduce dependencies\u201d. It is also noted that \u201cNATO remains the cornerstone of the collective defence of its members in Europe\u201d and that EU-NATO cooperation is an indispensable pillar for the development of EU security and defence\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The European Commission today presented its long-awaited \u201cWhite Paper on European Defence\u201d \u2013 a plan for rearmament of Europe, which the Commission calls \u201cEuropean…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[818,390],"tags":[2937,25,449,6716],"class_list":["post-23408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-politics","tag-defence","tag-eu","tag-eu-commission","tag-white-paper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23410,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23408\/revisions\/23410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}