Von der Leyen responds to Trump with €800 billion plan to rearm Europe
Finland proposes to agree that Ukraine becomes a NATO ally if Russia breaches a potential ceasefire
BrusselsBrussels' urgent reaction to the decision of Donald Trump to freeze aid to Ukraine. The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced this Tuesday a multi-billion-dollar rearmament plan to continue supporting Ukrainian troops and for European states to regain military autonomy from the United States. "Europe must take responsibility for its capacity for deterrence and security," stressed the head of the community executive in an appearance in which she did not accept questions.
The strategy outlined by Von der Leyen consists of five points and has been sent by letter to all European leaders, who will meet urgently this Thursday in the Belgian capital to discuss it. The first is the relaxation of fiscal rules: each member state will be able to increase its defense spending without it being taken into account when opening a file if it exceeds the deficit limit, which is now a maximum of 3% of gross domestic product (GDP). This measure, as Von der Leyen herself pointed out, would allow countries to spend a total of 1.5% of their GDP on defence, which could mean an extra 600 billion euros in four years.
It should be noted, however, that this exceptional clause would have to be requested by the member states themselves in Brussels and there are state governments that do not plan to use it at the moment, such as Spain. In addition, it would be paid for by state budgets, and in no case by the common accounts of the European Union.
The second point of the plan that Brussels has notified to the Member States by letter is the access of European partners to loans guaranteed by the EU for a total value of up to 150 billion euros. This money would be used to finance a joint purchase of weapons, which is expected to help reduce costs and improve interoperability between the different European armies. In this regard, the President of the European Commission has announced that it is intended to strengthen air defense systems, acquire more missiles, ammunition and drones, strengthening the defense of critical infrastructures and the fight against cyber attacks.
The third line of financing that Brussels proposes is the diversion of some European funds that are already being deployed, such as those for Cohesion. In this way, Von der Leyen intends to encourage Member States to allocate money that they have allocated to finance other issues to defense and proposes "eliminating restrictions" on the purchase of weapons or participation in military projects. In any case, the European Commission is ignoring for the moment the requests of some member states such as France or Spain to issue common debt, and is not proposing the creation of new Eurobonds, similar to those approved to deal with the economic consequences of the pandemic.
Fourth and fifth, the President of the European Commission calls for more private capital to be mobilised by completing the EU Capital Markets Union and once again proposes that the European Investment Bank (EIB), chaired by former Spanish Vice-President Nadia Calviño, should increase its resources in an underlying manner. In fact, a majority of Member States, including Spain, already asked the EIB last month to modify its statutes and be able to provide financing for projects that have a direct military use, something that this financial institution cannot do at the moment.
Security guarantees for Ukraine
Von der Leyen's plan was not the only response to Trump's decision to cut aid to Kiev. French Secretary of State for European Affairs Benjamin Haddad has criticised the plan in statements to France 2 The White House's positioning "reinforces the aggressor," which is Russia, and has urged European partners to be aware of the "historic" importance of the European summit to be held this Thursday in Brussels, which will discuss Europe's rearmament strategy and the war in Ukraine.
On the other hand, Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb proposed on Tuesday that Ukraine become a NATO ally de facto. That is, an agreement would be reached that Ukraine would automatically join the NATO if Russia breached a potential ceasefire or attacked Ukraine again. Stubb argued in an interview with CNN that this would be a way of avoiding the "scepticism" of countries such as the United States and Germany about Ukraine's membership in NATO and, at the same time, of providing security guarantees to Kiev, which is what European leaders are discussing.