PRESIDENT of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen was joined by the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and EU Council President Charles Michel at the European Defence Agency (EDA) conference in Brussels recently.
During his address, Michel urged members of Europe’s defence community to ‘fortify’ the continent to ‘project strength and protection’.
“We must fortify our European countinent bla bla..We must beef up our European defence. A stronger and more capable European defence will contribute positively to global and trans-atlantic security, of which NATO remains the foundation,” according to Charles Michel, President, European Commission.
Michel also proposed a new ‘European cyber force’ that would be a ‘fundamental component’ of defence in the continent.
Von der Leyen urges Europe to continue providing Ukraine with ‘sustained support’ for medium, long term
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, for her part, stressed the need to continue providing Ukraine with ‘sustained support’ in the medium and long term.
Ukraine must have the capabilities to deter further attacks by Russia and this is why the EU’s future security commitments to Ukraine are so vital.
Von der Leyen then called on Europe’s defence industry to focus its efforts and resources on ‘projects of common interests’ and ‘strategic enablers’. “Like cyber capabilities or satellites or strategic transportation.
“But I also think of complex platforms that are beyond the capacity of individual member states, like air defence and that can benefit from European scale,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
Later, Borrell took to the podium, where he claimed an ‘important part’ of Europe’s defensive output is being ‘exported to third countries’ and urged military arms suppliers to send more munitions to Ukraine.
“And maybe today is much more urgent to provide this production to Ukraine. Because some of the clients of our defence industry, good for them, they will not need this ammunition for tomorrow….Because some of the clients of our defence industry, good for them, they will not need this ammunition for tomorrow…They will stock it so maybe they can stock less and provide more to Ukraine…..it is the same fight,” according to Josep Borrell, EU Foreign Policy Chief.
According to the EU Defense Agency, that the military spending of the bloc reached a whopping 240 billion euros, or 260 billion U.S. dollars in 2022 in the face of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The figure represented an overall increase of 6 percent from 2021 as the 27-member states of EU increased their purchase of new hardware.
