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ANALYSIS – Europe is studying ways to free up 500 billion euros. NATO could raise the required threshold for military investment from 2% to 3% of GDP.
He boasted of having already pushed them to invest 600 billion additional dollars thanks to similar injunctions during his first term. This is not wrong: from 3 NATO member countries to devote at least 2% of their GDP to defense ten years ago, we have gone to 23 this year.
This will not be enough. NATO must spend “much more” to prevent a “major war” in Europe, its new Secretary General, Mark Rutte , argued on Thursday. “The danger is approaching us at great speed, “ he justified, in a speech in Brussels. He recalled that the allies had ” won ” the Cold War by devoting more than 3% of their GDP to their defense. A figure now discussed as a new potential objective, which could be adopted at the next NATO summit in The Hague in 2025, according to the Financial Times. Going from 2% to 3% would represent some 200 billion euros more per year.
Russia may be ready to launch a military attack against an EU or NATO country before 2030. We are far short of the needs, which we must meet before 2030.
Andrius Kubilius, commissaire européen à la Défense
Diplomatic contacts are increasing to prepare for the mobilization – financial for the moment. Mark Rutte raised the subject on Thursday with Ursula von der Leyen. At the same time, the French, German and Polish finance ministers were discussing it in Warsaw, while their foreign affairs counterparts were meeting in Berlin, with those of Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. The latter said they were willing to “a fair sharing of the burden within the Atlantic Alliance, in particular through increased efforts by the EU in terms of security and defense”.
Solving the budget equation
As a sign of these ambitions, the EU has appointed a Defence Commissioner, a first. Former Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius is calling for a “big bang” . However, Europe often moves at a snail’s pace. The Twenty-Seven know that they will have to free up budgetary resources for defence in the EU’s next multi-annual budget for the period 2028-2035. But it will be too late. ” Russia may be ready to launch a military attack against an EU or NATO country before 2030 “ , warned Andrius Kubilius, citing several intelligence reports. And “we are well below the needs, which we must meet before 2030”, he added. He will present his strategy in detail in a “white paper“, expected in early March, with the necessary funding.
Several avenues have been discussed to resolve the budgetary equation and find funds quickly. The idea of ” defense bonds” is regularly mentioned. But the rejection by Germany and the Netherlands of any idea of joint borrowing means that we have to ” show imagination”, as Kaja Kallas, the new head of diplomacy for the European Union, says. There are also many legal reservations here.
The hypothesis of an ad hoc defense fund has also been discussed by European diplomats and officials for several weeks. This would make it possible to overcome the blockages of the countries that are holding back, and to open access to others, non-EU members, such as the United Kingdom, which is very interested, or Norway. The model mentioned is the European Stability Mechanism, the eurozone’s safeguard fund, created after the sovereign debt crisis more than ten years ago, with a strike force of 450 billion euros.
In this quest for resources, the European Investment Bank (EIB), whose mandate currently prohibits the financing of purely military projects, should also be called upon. The “ frugal “ states are pushing, for their part, to use all the funds in the EU budget drawers that are not used. “There are several solutions on the table. It is premature to decide what will be chosen, “believes Andrzej Domanski, Minister of Finance of Poland, who intends to make this subject a priority of his rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, in the first half of 2025. To finance what? Warsaw and Berlin are arguing for a European air defense shield – a project that, on its own, would cost several hundred billion. Perplexed, France, quite isolated among the Twenty-Seven, is seeking to impose that European investments finance European projects, and not American companies.
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