President Donald Trump has made clear he wants Europe to be less reliant on U.S. military backing and be more self-sufficient. The message appears to be finally getting through with a day of emergency summit talks Thursday planned to examine ways to build capabilities.
AP reports Friedrich Merz, the likely next chancellor of Germany, was conferring with summit host Antonio Costa over breakfast in Brussels on how to meet the challenge on a short deadline only days after he and his prospective coalition partner pushed plans to loosen the nation’s rules on running up debt to allow for higher defense spending.
At the same time, the 27-nation European union (E.U.) bloc was waking up to the news from French President Emmanuel Macron would confer with E.U. leaders the possibility of using France’s nuclear deterrent to protect the continent from Russian threats.
It all underscored the sea change that has happened in the two months since Trump returned to the White House and immediately started demanding Europe start to look to its own defenses.
Trump has criticized the cost of the war in Ukraine for U.S. taxpayers through major military aid packages and made clear he wants to shift more of the fiscal burden back across the Atlantic.
He has also challenged NATO members to raise defense spending to five percent of their overall economic output, as Breitbart News reported.
“Given these profound shifts in U.S. policy, and the existential threat of another war on the continent, Europe, must manage its essential defence tasks,” the European Policy Center think tank said in a commentary as seen by the AP report.
The bloc of 27 will “take decisive steps forward,” Macron told the French nation Wednesday evening.
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“Member states will be able to increase their military spending” and “massive joint funding will be provided to buy and produce some of the most innovative munitions, tanks, weapons and equipment in Europe.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wants to be up to the task and has proposed an $840 billion plan that would allow E.U. member states to spend much more on defense despite their current budgetary woes and profit from loans to kickstart the process.
Part of any plan is also to protect the increasingly beleaguered position of Ukraine, and President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to take part in the talks.
The Ukraine leader has already gone so far as to call for the creation of a grand European army that can march against any foe.
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