EU chief estimates EU defence needs at 500 bn euros

To strengthen its defenses, the EU must invest 500 billion euros ($535 billion) over the course of the next ten years, according to EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, who addressed leaders on Thursday.

After years of underinvestment, European Union nations are trying to bolster their defense industries and re-equip their armed forces in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“We estimate that additional defence investments of around 500 billion euros are needed over the next decade,” von der Leyen said.

The head of the EU’s executive did not, however, provide a detailed breakdown of what her projected sum covered.

“We didn’t see spreadsheets, we didn’t see details, this is pie in the sky money,” an EU diplomat said.

Additionally, it is still unclear how the EU will pay for the expenditure; national funding or joint EU defense bonds are two possibilities that have been mentioned.

The EU’s consideration of joint borrowing, as it did to finance its recovery effort following the Covid epidemic, is a contentious issue.

“Several countries, including France and Estonia, are in favour of eurobonds,” an EU official said. “But Germany and the Netherlands are against.”

“None of these options are easy, but all of them have to be looked at with the political will to decide what to do together, but they have to be looked at seriously,” von der Leyen said.

Since Russia took Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, EU nations have already raised their defense spending in that ten-year period.

Since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, this tendency has intensified, with a notable rise in the proportion of EU nations meeting NATO’s defense budget requirement of two percent of GDP.

According to the EU’s defense department, 240 billion euros were spent on defense by member states in 2022.

Nonetheless, China’s and Russia’s recent gains in defense spending have eclipsed the EU’s.

“If you look at the combined EU spending on defence from 1999 to 2021 so in three years, it increased by 20 percent in that same timeframe, China’s defence spending increased by almost 600 percent and Russia’s defence spending by almost 300 percent,” said von der Leyen.

“This is even before Russia massively increased over the last two years its defence spending.”

As part of its push to bolster defence industries across the bloc, the EU is looking to appoint commissioner dedicated to working on the issue.