Brussels letter
Brussels has never discussed so intensely on defense and financing matters for its industrial and technological base. Three years after the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and three months after Donald Trump’s return to power in the United States, Europe has begun to worry about its defense again. For now, the organization of the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO), based in Brussels, remains responsible for the collective defense of the continent, but the US president has not hidden his intentions with respect to the Alliance.
He warned that if Europeans are still due because to have the US nuclear umbrella, they will have to pay their own conventional defense sectors and have a significant consumption of their budgets. As the United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said on April 3, European countries would need to assign 5% of their gross domestic product to military spending, compared to a current average or 2%. This would represent an exceptional financial increase, at the same time as a commercial war and a storm of the stock market shake the planet.
In Brussels, the commission presented its first ideas on March 4: a flat mega entitled “Rearm Europe”, which should allow the 27 EU member states to spend about € 800 billion more in its armies until 2030. Debt. The Commission also proposes to create a fund, the security action for Europe (SAFE), aimed at collecting around 150 billion euros of capital markets, which will be lent to EU countries to preferential rates.
It has 70.59% of this article to read. The rest is only for subscribers.
]
