Europe's call to arms: Unprecedented defence consensus emerges
Russia spends more on armaments than the rest of Europe combined, warned the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, on Tuesday in the European Parliament. However, she added that during last week's summit, an unprecedented consensus on defence was reached.
During the European Parliament's defence debate, von der Leyen emphasized that after the end of the Cold War, "some believed that Russia could be integrated into the European economic and security architecture." In contrast, others "hoped we could indefinitely rely on America's protection."
And so, we lowered our guard. We cut our defence spending from routinely averaging more than 3.5% to less than half of that, she said.
The head of the European Commission added that we enjoyed a "peace dividend." - But in reality, we were just running a security deficit. The time of illusions is now over - she declared.
Russia is rearming
Von der Leyen warned that Russia spends more on armaments than the EU. If we look at military spending realistically, the Kremlin spends more than Europe combined. She assessed that Europe's production is still at a lower level.
As the President of the European Commission emphasized, this goal underlies her plan to rearm the EU, which she presented to the leaders of the 27 member states at the summit in Brussels on March 6.
She said the logic is simple: We want to leverage every financial mechanism to strengthen and accelerate our defence production. This will allow us to mobilize up to CA$1.2 trillion.
The head of the European Commission added that at the summit, she saw a consensus among leaders on defence, which is not only unprecedented but "was completely unthinkable just a few weeks ago."
