Europe needs to be able to deter potential invaders by 2030, the EU executive has said as it launched a push to buy more weapons in the bloc and from allied countries, rather than from the US.
The UK, US and Turkey will be excluded from defence contracts funded by a €150bn (£125bn) EU loans programme, unless they sign a security and defence partnership agreement with the EU.
The €150bn loans scheme will be open to EU member states as part of a massive surge in defence spending, but 65% of the costs of equipment funded must come from suppliers in the EU, Norway or Ukraine. The rest could be spent in non-EU countries with a security agreement.
The details came as the European Commission said Russia would remain “a fundamental threat to Europe’s security for the foreseeable future”.
The EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told reporters that the EU was preparing for the worst: “We don’t have a cold war, but we have a hot war on European soil, and the threat is existential. It’s as real as it can get.”
Last month Danish intelligence services warned that if Moscow perceived Nato as weak, Russia could be ready to wage a large-scale war in Europe within five years. Denmark’s prime minister Mette Frederiksen urged fellow EU leaders to set a 2030 target on rearmament at a recent emergency summit in Brussels.
Addressing the Royal Danish Military Academy in Copenhagen on Tuesday, the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said “readiness 2030” meant “to have rearmed and developed the capabilities to have credible deterrence” and “an industrial base that is a strategic advantage”.
The UK is described as an “essential European ally” in the paper, which also proposes deepening cooperation with Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. The EU has defence pacts with six countries, including Japan, Korea and Norway.
Kallas, who met the UK foreign secretary David Lammy on Tuesday, said the commission was working on having a defence and security partnership with the UK and she hoped for results at an EU-UK summit in May.
The “Buy European” approach is a victory for France, but is likely to face pushback from member states, such as the Netherlands and Poland, in discussions on finalising the €150bn loan proposals. Many countries say they want a bigger European defence industry, but oppose restrictions on military spending.
“The British defence industry is so much intertwined with ours [in the EU],” a senior EU diplomat said. “We have an integrated value chain in the west for our military stuff. And it wouldn’t make sense to cut it.”
They added that China, Iran and Russia were deepening defence industry cooperation. “So those who say that we should cut out the non-Europeans are shooting themselves geopolitically and economically in the foot.”
EU leaders, who will discuss the plans at a summit on Thursday, also differ in the tone they take on the US.
Italy’s former prime minister, Mario Draghi, who is advising the commission on competitiveness, told Italian lawmakers this week that European security had been put in doubt by Donald Trump’s change in foreign policy towards Russia.
A senior German government official in Berlin told reporters: “We don’t want to give the impression we are seeking to decouple ourselves from the US.”
EU countries, such as France and Spain, are likely to be disappointed that the commission has not come up with new money to fund defence ambitions.
Officials think the EU can raise €800bn in new defence spending – €150bn from EU-backed loans raised on capital markets and €650bn fiscal flexibilities that allow EU member states to go into debt for defence without breaking the EU’s fiscal rules.
EU diplomats say the headline €800bn will never be realised. Some of the largest and wealthiest member states, with top credit ratings, such as Germany and the Netherlands, have no intention of taking out EU-backed loans. Other member states, especially in southern Europe, are seen as reluctant to deepen their national debts for defence.
The commission could act as a central purchasing body, it suggests in the paper, opening the door to the EU executive buying drones, missiles and other equipment, if member states wished. The proposal recalls the role EU bodies have already played in buying ammunition for Ukraine and vaccines during the Covid pandemic.
Defence spending in Europe has jumped since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, hitting 1.9% of GDP in 2024 for 27 member states, which includes 23 Nato allies. But Donald Trump’s rapprochement towards Russia and hostility to the EU has forced a change of thinking.
The EU’s 450 million citizens “should not have to depend on 340 million Americans to defend ourselves against 140 million Russians, who cannot defeat 38 million Ukrainians”, EU defence commissioner Andrius Kubilius said.
“We really can do better. It’s time for us to take responsibility for the defence of Europe.”
