European Union (EU) Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton on Thursday came up with the idea of creating a 100 billion euro fund to promote the European defense industry.
“It’s an ambition, a vision,” Breton told reporters in Brussels. He did not elaborate on how such a fund would be financed, and acknowledged that any plan would still need to be debated within the 27-nation bloc.
Breton indicated that €100 billion was his personal estimate. According to him, such an amount is necessary to significantly increase the capacity of the European defense industry.
Russia’s 2022 re-invasion of Ukraine became a wake-up call for the EU to strengthen its defense industry, which was downsized after the Cold War.
Bretton has already launched a series of smaller initiatives aimed at strengthening munitions production and EU defense companies to make it easier for the EU to provide military aid to Ukraine and replenish its stockpiles. He expressed confidence that the EU will achieve his goal of producing one million 155 mm artillery shells per year by March or April.
Breton stressed that increasing Europe’s armaments is a “vital topic” that will have to be the focus of any political force that comes to power in the EU after the European Parliament (EP) elections in June.
Despite unprecedented economic sanctions from the West, Russia has been able to increase its weapons production and negotiate arms deliveries with allies such as North Korea.
Attempts to create a fund of the scale proposed by Breton are likely to face resistance from the EU’s “thrifty” countries such as Germany. However, the idea has found ears in Russia’s border countries, including Poland, which strongly supports efforts to increase European defense forces.
2024-01-11 20:00:13
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