If there is one silver lining to Donald Trump’s Oval Office bust-up with Volodymyr Zelensky last Friday, it is that Europe is finally getting serious on rearmament and defence. Or is it?
On Tuesday, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission (EC), announced a package of measures designed to encourage EU member states to up their defence spending. If they make full use of the new proposals, von der Leyen said, it would amount to an increase of up to €800 billion (£661 billion) spent on defence across the bloc. Announcing the package, she declared: ‘We are in an era of rearmament. And Europe is ready to massively boost its defence spending.’
Europeans have had months – if not years – to prepare a plan for exactly this eventuality
Setting out what she has called the ‘ReArm Europe plan’, von der Leyen declared that the available funds could be used by EU member states to buy ‘air and missile defence, artillery systems, missiles and ammunition drones and anti-drone systems’, as well as ‘address other needs from cyber to military mobility’.
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