According to the European Defence Agency (EDA), in 2024, the defence spending of the 27 EU countries could reach 326 billion euros, or 1.9% of the EU’s GDP. This is 31% more than in 2021. However, EU member states have so far failed to find a compromise on joint arms purchases, financial borrowing and the need for European purchases.
Experts: Joint spending should be the starting point
Despite the obvious fact that financing rearmament is a difficult task for the European Union, it is pointless to deny the impact of the US election results on this process. Internal protectionism and, as experts emphasize, the isolationist policy of Trump’s supporters is no less a serious factor for Europe than the lack of public finances. All this has a complex effect on the heightened defense policy of Europe, whose leadership has been proposing various solutions for the militarized defense of the continent since the beginning of 2022. And these solutions are far from always real and logical.
Guntram Wolff, senior fellow at the Bruegel Institute, believes that the starting point for developing an effective strategy should be joint spending in order to increase efficiency and profitability, as well as reduce costs. Jan Joel Anderson, senior analyst at the EU Institute for Security Studies, in turn, advocates using Eurobonds as joint borrowings. “The idea of the EU borrowing more together is that many member states have problems with their national finances, and this would be a way of using the EU’s collective power as a borrower to make borrowing cheaper,” he said. Germany has already criticized the idea of participating in joint borrowing.
Specific needs of member states dictate their own defense demands
In addition to the proposal for joint loans, the question of the advisability of strategic autonomy is also actively discussed. For example, French President Emmanuel Macron calls for “buying European”. And Philippe Perchoc, director of IRSEM Europe, advocated placing orders in other countries in order to reduce costs and delivery times. “It’s not that we should only buy European; I don’t think anyone has that in mind, but we should perhaps reevaluate the share of what is European in what we buy,” Pershock said.
At the same time, Jan Joel Anderson draws attention to the fact that the specific needs of member states dictate their own defense demands. According to him, for example, France needs a “nuclear deterrent capability”, while other EU countries are more focused on heavy tanks and heavy artillery.
It is worth recalling that in December 2024, the new EU Commissioner for defense and space Andrius Kubilius announced the amount Europe needs for rearmament. According to Le Monde, the talk was about half a trillion euros over the next 10 years. “Five hundred billion euros is a lot. We need to think seriously about our weapons. And we need a big explosion in funding,” Kubilius said.
