European Union leaders have agreed to boost defence spending by freeing up hundreds of billions of euros to strengthen security, in a move to offset President Donald Trump’s repeated warnings that the US is ready to leave them to face the threat of Russia alone. The 27 leaders held emergency talks in Brussels yesterday to discuss how to strengthen their collective security and ensure Ukraine’s future protection.
They agreed to ease budgetary restrictions that currently stand in the way of EU member countries increasing military spending and directed the European Commission (EC) to find new ways “to facilitate significant defence spending” in all member states, a post-summit statement said. The EU’s executive branch estimates that this approach could free up some 650 billion euros. It has proposed offering loans worth 150 billion euros for the purchase of new military equipment, a move the leaders said should be followed up on “as a matter of urgency”.
“Europe faces a clear and present danger, and therefore Europe has to be able to protect itself, to defend itself,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, known for his support of Trump and widely seen as Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s closest ally in Europe, refused to endorse the section of the summit statement favouring Ukraine. The remaining 26 EU leaders endorsed the EU position that there can be no negotiations on Ukraine without Ukraine and that the Europeans must be involved in any talks involving their security.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland, current holder of the EU’s rotating presidency, said three years of war in Ukraine and Washington’s shift in attitude posed “entirely new challenges” which Europe must address and “must win.” The European nations, he added, “will arm ourselves faster, smarter and more efficiently than Russia.”
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed the planned loosening of budget rules, hoping that some of the new funding could be used to strengthen the Ukrainian defence industry, which he said can produce weapons more cheaply than elsewhere in Europe and closer to the battlefields. In his nightly televised address, Zelenskyy announced that talks between Kyiv and Washington about ending the war are scheduled for next week in Saudi Arabia and that he will go there on Monday. He and his colleagues would remain on for talks with US officials afterwards.
