BRUSSELS, BELGIUM – NOVEMBER 6: Commissioner-designate for Defense and Space Andrius Kubilius … [+] attends a hearing in the European Parliament on November 6, 2024. (Photo by Thierry Monasse/Getty Images)
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Andrius Kubilius drew back the curtain about an hour into his November 6 confirmation hearing as the European Union’s first-ever commissioner for defense and space. A former prime minister of Lithuania and long-time member of the European Parliament, Kubilius told a story about a recent war game simulating a Russian attack on his home country.
The alarming finding of the exercise: Lithuania would be overrun—defeated by the Russians and occupied—well before NATO forces arrived, probably about 10 days later. Lithuania estimates that preparing for such an assault would require it to double its defense spending from nearly 3% of GDP, already higher than all but four European countries, to 6%. (The U.S. spends 3.4%, according to NATO.) “How shall we do it?” a somber Kubilius asked his fellow parliamentarians. “How much the European Union can help us? That is the question to which we need to find an answer together.”
Some 1,000 days after Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, with President-elect Donald Trump threatening to end the fighting on terms that many believe will be favorable to Moscow, Europeans are increasingly worried that war is coming to their doorstep. The past year has seen a sharp escalation of sabotage that European intelligence services attribute to Moscow: arson attacks on a Warsaw shopping mall, a German weapons factory and a Ukrainian-owned logistics firm in London, plus a foiled plot to sabotage a military installation in Germany and a conspiracy to assassinate the CEO of a German arms manufacturer, among other illegal acts. And German intelligence has predicted that Russia could be ready for an armed attack on NATO by the end of the decade.
Kubilius’ query—what can the EU do?—has been ricocheting across the continent since the start of the war. But so far, there has been more talk than action. Although Europe has mustered ample financial aid for Ukraine, it has taken few meaningful steps to bolster its own defense or defense capabilities. Defense spending is still historically low, well below what it was during the Cold War, and even countries that have increased their budgets often buy the lion’s share of what they need outside of Europe, sending jobs and investment to the U.S. and Asia.
The question now, intensified by the prospect of a second Trump administration: Will the continent act, and if so, how?
The EU Makes Plans To Increase Collaborative Weapons Production
Born out of a Franco-German industrial partnership designed to keep peace in Europe, the EU has traditionally been leery of defense preparation. The treaty that holds the union together prohibits budget outlays on “operations having military or defense implications.” Several member states have robust defense industries, but by and large they operate independently, with little cooperation or coordination, and since 1949, the continent has looked to NATO to provide collective security.
Attitudes began to change when Russia invaded Ukraine. The EU set aside some modest pots of money, justified as industrial policy rather than defense spending, to encourage continent-wide collaboration on arms and ammunition production. Polls showed widespread popular support. According to a May 2024 survey by Eurobarometer, 77% of EU citizens would like to see the union develop a common policy on defense and security, and 71% agree that it needs to do more to produce military equipment.
There has also been a cascade of high-level reports recommending more cooperation—sharply increased spending, collaborative procurement, more joint weapons production, a common market for military equipment, collective spending on defense-related R&D, and more. The common theme: pooling both demand and supply for greater efficiency and European autonomy.
Still, for all the hope and ideas, so far the fruits have been meager. According to one estimate by former EU commissioner Thierry Breton, Europe needs to spend €100 billion a year to provide for adequate collective defense. A plan for increased cooperation pending in the European Parliament would set aside just €1.5 billion.
Meanwhile, North Korea has reportedly sent 9 million artillery shells to Russia for use against Ukraine, while the EU struggled to fulfill its promise to supply Kyiv with 1 million—though European GDP is 600 times bigger than North Korea’s.
Enter The New Defense Commissioner, Andrius Kubilius
Kubilius’ three-hour confirmation hearing offered a window on the evolving European debate and possible next steps. The avuncular, soft-spoken commissioner-designate answered questions from some four dozen fellow lawmakers from across the continent and the political spectrum. Just the day after the U.S. election, many Europeans were clearly shaken by the results. And questions about if—whether the EU should accelerate its efforts to build a common defense—were sharply overshadowed by questions about how.
“Europe has talked defense for too long,” Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, former chair of the defense committee in the German parliament, stated. “Now we must act defense.”
How would the EU decide which weapons and ammunition to buy? Where would it coproduce matériel—how to avoid favoring the few countries that already have significant defense production capacity? What about big, collective items like a missile defense shield and electronic border wall? How would the union encourage innovation and incentivize small and medium-size defense firms? Kubilius waded patiently through the queries, answering some and putting off others. (Yes, he hopes Europe will build a missile defense and fortify its eastern border electronically. Yes, he expects weapons production will be distributed across the continent and smaller firms will play a role.) All these issues are likely to come up in the detailed white paper he is due to produce in his first 100 days in office.
Looking beyond who and how, Kubilius spoke with reassuring confidence about three of the four biggest issues ahead. He stated repeatedly that the next seven-year EU budget, which will kick in at the start of 2028, will include an unprecedented sum for defense, perhaps as much as €500 billion. He sees no conflict between an EU defense initiative and NATO. “We are not competing,” he stated unequivocally. “NATO is making military defense plans and high military command. We are not going into that area.” He also reassured lawmakers that no proposed spending would run afoul of the EU treaty—in the future, as currently, he seemed to suggest, any proposed defense spending could fall under the rubric of industrial policy.
The one big question he declined to answer—for many lawmakers, the most pressing issue on the table—was where to find the money to launch meaningful defense cooperation between now and 2028.
Political leaders, bankers, administrators and policy think tanks have floated some half dozen funding proposals in the last year, some of them more radical than others. Could the EU divert some of its existing spending to defense procurement—even perhaps the 30% of its budget, known as “cohesion funding,” currently allotted for national spending on infrastructure and environmental initiatives? Could it launch a massive new spending program modeled on the one-time fund created in 2021 to help member states pay for Covid recovery, or the pot set aside in 2012 during the European sovereign debt crisis to assist countries facing financial crises?
Still another possibility, already being partly implemented, the European Investment Bank could relax the guidelines that have traditionally prevented it from granting loans for defense production. One idea that initially met with widespread skepticism but is now gaining traction: a dedicated bond issue—joint European debt, guaranteed in some way by member state treasuries—to pay for weapons production and other defense preparedness.
Kubilius refused to come down in favor of any of these options. Yet even as he hedged, he showed little sign of concern—as if this was merely a technical question, something that could be easily handled by what he called “the experts.” “If there is a will, there is a way,” he stated confidently, suggesting that the issue would take care of itself if political leaders found the necessary resolve.
Hard-earned wisdom or breezy overconfidence—the kind of overconfidence that has landed Europe in its current predicament? Evidence marshalled by others who have made the case for increased spending suggests Kubilius could be right. Among those who appear to agree is Mario Draghi, former prime minister of Italy and president of the European Central Bank, whose seminal report earlier this fall also called for a dramatic uptick in defense spending. European households have ample savings, his report explained, to finance higher investment—€1,390 billion in 2022, compared with €840 billion in the U.S. The implications for defense and other desperately needed high-tech innovation: “the EU can meet these investment needs,” Draghi maintained, “without overstretching.”
Maybe so. But the question remains, hanging over Europeans’ safety and security, today and likely for years to come. How to get there from here? How to go beyond talk to action? Could Kubilius’ appointment be the key that unlocks the door? If intelligence assessments of the Russian threat are right, Europe doesn’t have much time to find out.
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Publish date : 2024-11-26 12:41:00
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