On the Future of the European Defence

Based on the speach of Andrius Kubilius during EPP Group study days, 25 September 2024

We are living through the major crisis of geopolitical security on European continent.

Authoritarian, aggressive Russia is the biggest threat to the security of Europe. There also are, of course, other threats.

This is the reason, why both European People’s Party in its Election Manifesto and the Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her Political Guidelines, has declared Defence, together with Competitivness,  as the most important priority for the new Commission.

“European Defence” can become the new “flagship project” of the new Commission, thus in the future defining historical legacy of the Commission.

It is not a surprise that such an understanding of the significance of the European Defence was followed by the decision to establish a post of the Defence Commissioner.

As you know, Ursula von der Leyen offered me to become a Commissioner for Defence and Space, the first one in the history of the European Union. Thanks a lot for your trust in my personal experience.

I would like to share some thoughts about how I see the issue of the European  Defence and the role of the EU in developing common European Defence, taking into account definition of my responsibilities in the “Mission Letter” sent to me.

I see 2 different timeframes and specific goals in the issue of the European Defence:

1. a) what do we need to do during the next 5 years, in order to deter possible Russian aggression against the Member States of the European Union or NATO; and
2. b) what do we need to do during the upcoming decades in order to be prepared for potentially diminishing role of the United States in the European Defence.

I would like to begin by stressing a simple truth – Defence is a common responsibility: responsibility of the Member States of the European Union or NATO and of the European Union itself.

There is no and there will be no competition between the EU and NATO. NATO is doing an important job with its Defence and Deterrence plans and with its High military command. Meanwhile, the EU can bring added value with additional resources, which are needed for the Defence. The EU, unlike NATO, has specific financial and legal instruments, which can bring the resources.

What a situation do we have today with the European Defence, and what do we need to overhaul in the nearest future?

During the last 10 years, EU Member States have under-invested more than 1 trillion euros into general defence, and around 300 billion euros were under-invested to the EU Defence industry (those resources would have been available if the defence spending of all the Member States had reached 2% of their GDP).

From the beginning of Russia’s war against Ukraine, EU Member States started to increase their military spending from 200 billion euros (per year) before the war up to 300 billion euros (by the way, the USA is spending more than 800 billion euros for the defence). Despite the increase in military spending, EU Member States are still buying only 20% of the necessary military equipment from the EU military industry. This means that our industry is left without our money.

Capacity of the EU military industry is below the level needed for the conventional defence. In 2022 we were able to produce only 300 000 artillery shells per year. Ukraine alone needs at least 4 million shells per year. With the assistance of EU ASAP (Act in Support of Ammunition Production) programme, we will be able to increase our production up to the level of 2 million shells, but only at the end of 2025. Russians together with North Korea will be able to produce around 10 million shells in the nearest future.

The combined West is 25 times economically stronger than Russia. However, we are still not able to military support Ukraine up to the level of its victory.

According to the recently published Kiel Institute Report, in 6 months Russia can produce an amount of military equipment equal to the whole amount today used by the German Army. We ourselves are tempting Putin to test capabilities of the EU and NATO to defend Europe.

Defence Minister of Germany Boris Pistorius (as well as NATO Generals) is warning that, according to German intelligence and experts, in 6-8 years Russia will be ready to test us. Estimates of other experts is that we have only 3-5 years until this “test”.

Ursula von der Leyen in the “Mission Letter” sent to me, asked that I, together with HR/VP Kaja Kallas, during the first 100 days of my mandate prepare a “White Paper on the Future of European Defence”, and “identify investment needs /…/ to deliver defence capabilities /…/ readying EU and MS for the most extreme military contingencies”.

In order to be ready for the most extreme military contingencies (that is, for the military aggression) we need to take care of 4 types of most important defence resources (capabilities): military equipment; military personnel; military logistics (military mobility); and defence industry capacity to deliver equipment during long lasting war. The last one (defence industry capacity) unfortunately, often stays forgotten. American experts claim that after 10 months of intensive battles the USA would be left with only 2 heavy brigades – out of 15 brigades it currently has. US industry will simply not be capable to replace the damaged equipment.

What do we need to do and how to prepare ourselves for the most extreme military contingencies?

First, we need precise information – what resources do we currently have, and what will be needed to defend our territory. It seems that at the moment the European Commission has no direct access to such an information. Maybe NATO has, but they are not sharing.

Lithuanian experts, together with NATO experts and with former US generals have recently conducted a military simulations exercise. According to its results, if Lithuania in 2028 needed to defend alone its territory against a serious Russian aggression, it would have capacity to withstand the aggression for the first 10 days only in case it starts from today spending for its defence more that 6% of its GDP, and not 3% it is spending now. Do we have such data for the whole European Union?

Second, in order to be able in the nearest future to overcome the shortage of resources (including the shortage of industry capacity), we need to take immediate actions:

• We need to radically increase investments into defence industry up to 500 billion euros for the next 10 years. Out of those, 400 billion euros should be allocated for the EU defence industry, while the remaining 100 billion euros must strengthen the defence potential of Ukraine. There are many possible (although not necessarily obvious from the first sight) sources to find the needed funds: joint borrowing (so-called “Defence Bonds”), EU Recovery and Resilience Facility, European Stability Mechanism, European Investment Bank. Moreover, more than 100 billion euros may be dedicated to the defence in the next EU Multiannual Financial Framework, although we do not have the privilege of waiting until 2028 for the new MFF.
• Faster establishment and development of the single defence market. The European Parliament must without any delay approve the European Defence Industry Programme, thus paving the way towards the standardization and common certification in the defence industry.
• Ukraine’s defence industry must without delays be integrated into the EU defence industry.
• We must clearly understand, what military support is needed for Ukraine to win the war. We need to publish not only the data on how much we have delivered to Ukraine, but also how much of Ukraine’s Victory Plan we managed to implement.
• It is crucial for Europe to create the long term stable demand for the production of the European military industry. I suggest using the experience of Energy Union Security criteria and to introduce similar European defence security criteria, thus obliging Member States to keep in their storage facilities a certain agreed amount of military equipment and ammunition. This can also be implemented by the European Union and the European Commission themselves: buying and storing the equipment in storage facilities managed by the EU.
• The European Union must prepare a Peace Plan or a Victory Plan (similar to the US Victory Program, adopted in 1941) on how it would act in case of the Russian aggression against it. We already have some experience reacting to the Covid-19 pandemics with joint purchases of vaccines and medical equipment. However, it is better to be prepared in advance.

In any case such investments do pay off: we would not only deter Putin, but we would also significantly strengthen competitiveness of the European economy. The report on the future of European competitiveness by Mario Draghi clearly shows that the defence industry is a driver of innovation worldwide.

Our main obstacle is that we still don’t know how to implement a COMMON defence. This results in us not exploiting the EU’s and the Single Market’s combined potential for defence. There is a single way to overcome this: we need to begin by investing in Defence Projects of Common European Interest from the European Sky Shield Initiative and Cyber Defence Common Projects to the European Ammunition and Missiles Initiative and the NorthEastern Defence Shield. Success of Galileo and Copernicus space projects is a proof that we are able to achieve this.

These projects will be particularly important in assessing the longer-term prospects and challenges as Europe assumes an increasing responsibility for the European Defence in the same way as Cyber Defence and Hybrid Defence become even more important for Europe.

We are facing the biggest security crisis on the European Continent since World War II. But we must remain optimistic. Crises are the best time to tackle problems we have not tackled before. As Jean Monet said, Europe will be forged in crises, and will be the sum of the solutions adopted for those crises. We must come out of this crisis with a new Community instrument: the European Defence Union.

I was Prime Minister of my country twice, and both times it was during crises. I was even called “Crisis Prime Minister”. We have overcome the crises of that time, and we will overcome this one – with the assistance of the leadership of the EPP and with the EPP Defence Paper.

If we want to avoid the war, we need to show convincingly that we are ready for the war.

(Photo: Secretariat of the EPP Group in the EP)