Since President Donald Trump re-entered the White House, the United States has been sending a clear signal to its European partners: “You need to do more to defend yourselves.” Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and of course President Trump himself had all made clear in speeches, social media posts, and statements that they felt Europe was taking advantage of America. Finally, President Trump cut off military aid to Ukraine entirely after the disastrous Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. This, finally, kicked Brussels into gear and forced them to recognize the reality of the situation. Meeting in Brussels last week, all 27 member states agreed to make serious changes to spending and to massively increase defence spending…
…is what I might be typing if I lived in an alternative reality. Instead we live in this one, where a week of meetings resulted in absolutely nothing but kicking the can down the road. European leaders met to find a way forward on increasing defence spending and on defending Ukraine. They did neither.
The troubles began for Europe right after the Oval Office blow-up. French President Emmanuel Macron held an emergency meeting of European leaders in Paris – but bafflingly refused to invite any eastern European countries sans Poland. The Baltic States, which are some of the only European countries to take defence seriously, were completely left out. Macron tried to make up for it with a second meeting to which the other countries were invited, but it already started off on negatively.
But at the same time, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen seemed to have a plan: €800 billion for countries to spend on defence for the next few years, with €150 billion immediately available. While this is less than America spends in a single year, it was an impressive set of figures, and at least indicated that someone in Brussels was taking European defence seriously.
That was at the beginning of the week. European leaders were scheduled to meet later, on Thursday, to hash out von der Leyen’s proposal. They also wanted to show unity on Ukraine, and to guarantee that the beleaguered country continued to receive military aid.
Finally, the 27 leaders, plus von der Leyen, met in Brussels. The result was a series of conclusions. While very wordy and elevated in tone, the actual results (as in, the money they pledged to spend) was exactly zero euros and zero cents. The closest they got to embracing von der Leyen’s 150 billion proposal was the following: [The European Council] takes note of the intention of the Commission to put forward a proposal for a new EU instrument to provide Member States with loans backed by the EU budget of up to EUR 150 billion, and invites the Council to examine this proposal as a matter of urgency.” Effectively, it was one giant pledge to think about it.
As for the €800 billion? You could be excused for not having looked at the original fine print. Von der Leyen’s original proposal said that if all member states increased defence spending by 1.5 percent – as a result of the European debt brake being lifted – it “could” allow for €650 billion in spending. That, plus the original €150 billion (over half of which comes from unused COVID funds), totals €800 billion.
Effectively, the European Commission built their entire proposal upon “maybes” and “coulds.” There is absolutely no reason to assume that states will increase defence spending just because they can. Spain, which is already deep in the red and feels no threats to its security, is not suddenly going to ratchet-up defence spending for fun. And while Poland and the Baltics may increase, they already spend a decent amount (Poland, as a percent of GDP, spends the most on defence in the entirety of NATO, and has one of the bloc’s largest armies). There is no reason to assume they too will dramatically and suddenly increase spending when they already have.
The Ukraine portion was no better, with the Council agreeing to “provide Ukraine with regular and predictable financial support.” In short? Nothing much new. If Ukraine was hoping for Europe to pick up where America left off, they came away disappointed.
At first, one could have said this was a tragedy. Europe should have seen this coming, but its leaders had trapped the continent into high social safety nets – nets which could not be cut without political obliteration – without leaving money for defence spending.
But now, the tragedy has become farce. Europe has had ample warning, and their best solution is to agree to talk further. One European diplomat even mentioned, anonymously, that they would have to wait until “Trump is dead.”
Which just shows how little they get that things have fundamentally shifted. Time is running out for Europe to seriously get its act together. Doing so will be politically painful. But if they don’t, it could lead to far worse pain.
Europe finds butter delicious and guns too pricey to pay for defence