European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen has proposed a five-part plan to mobilise some 800bn euros ($842bn) to beef up Europe’s defence and provide “immediate” military support to Ukraine after the United States suspended aid.
“A new era is upon us,” the president said in a letter presenting the plan to 27 European Union (EU) leaders on Tuesday, two days before a summit aimed at cementing joint action on Ukraine and Europe’s long-term security begins in Brussels.
“Europe faces a clear and present danger on a scale that none of us has seen in our adult lifetime,” she wrote.
European leaders are under huge pressure to increase defence spending as US President Donald Trump’s return to power has delivered a rude wake-up call that they cannot blindly rely on Washington.
The joint borrowing would go towards building pan-European capability domains like air and missile defence, artillery systems, missiles and ammunition, drones and anti-drone systems or to address other needs from cyber- to military mobility, the EC said.
Von der Leyen’s proposal includes a new joint EU borrowing of 150bn euros ($158bn) to lend to EU governments for defence as part of the overall financing effort. She did not give a detailed timeframe, but said spending needed to be increased “urgently now but also over a longer period of time over this decade”.
“Europe is ready to assume its responsibilities,” von der Leyen wrote. “We will continue working closely with our partners in NATO. This is a moment for Europe. And we are ready to step up.”
The announcement came hours after Trump ordered a pause on military aid to Ukraine amid his ongoing spat with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week. Trump has also said NATO’s European members should spend 5 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defence – a figure no NATO member, including the US, currently reaches.
For years, EU nations have been unwilling to spend much on defence, as they rely on the US nuclear umbrella amid a sluggish economy. With the new proposal, EU member states would be forced to greatly increase their military spending, which is below 2 percent of their GDP.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has told the member states they need to move to more than 3 percent as quickly as possible.
