Posted on 03/04/2025 10:39:29 AM PST by Olog-hai
European Commission president Ursula Von Der Leyen has laid out plans to “rearm Europe” as she voiced that the continent has now entered “an era of rearmament”.
Speaking on Tuesday, Von Der Leyen highlighted that the EU defense plans set out could mobilize around €800 billion for defense.
“We are in an era of rearmament. Europe is ready to massively boost its defense spending. Both to respond to the short term urgency to support Ukraine, but also the long-term need for more responsibility for our own European security,” she said in her speech. […]
Under the plans, the EU will propose to free up budgets for member states where defense investments are concerned.
It also authorized around €150 billion in loans for those investments, highlighting that the European Commission will aim to harness private capital as well, Von der Leyen said.
“I have outlined in a letter to leaders of the European Council the Rearm Europe Plan,” she said ahead of a planned meeting on Thursday. “This centers on how to use all the financial levers at our disposal in order to help member states quickly and significantly increase expenditures in defense capabilities.” […]
The move is set against an increasingly uncertain backdrop where global affairs are concerned, with many insisting the world is seeing a “new world order” emerge. …
(Excerpt) Read more at lbc.co.uk ...
And all President Trump had to do to get the Europeans to defend themselves was cut them off. Brilliant.
That’s what they wanted.
It wasn’t brilliant. Because it was the obvious thing to do. But it did take someone with the guts to do it.
that 800 billion euro boost to defense spending will need to be replicated year after year in order to be serious about anything.
I’ll believe it when I see it.
Word to Canada: get your defense spending up to 2 % of GDP or else Ursula won’t defend you when Trump invades.
It’s supposed to be spread out over years, which makes it not so impressive.
Will be interesting to see if much in the way of actual weapons get produced - or it just enhances the balance sheet of the MIC. Color me skeptical.
Whatever, nobody else could or would do it which makes it brilliant.
Maybe after 10 years, after leaving behind their ridiculous green energy and open-borders policies, and if they don’t go bankrupt - they’ll be able to manage this transition.
Let’s see if they actually spent that money. However, militaries are build on warriors and Europe has very few and they are far between, so even if they spend the money, weapons without the necessary warriors equals paper tiger.
Empty promise, spread over years and will get cut back each year.
Feel free to mark this post, I am calling it now.
An arms race. What could go wrong?
800 billion + French nukes forward deployed to a half dozen countries. Looks like the Europeans have some cards to play.
800 Billion Euros spread out over 10 year at 80 billion per year spread out over the entire EU is nothing and as you say not so impressive.
All these Euro Liberals screaming about “Stand with Ukraine” will last about 10 minutes once the bill comes due given their economies are in the tank.
Just wait until the Greens in Germany, The leftists in UK, and well, EVERYONE in Belgium, France, Italy et al.. Hear that.
That is NOT going to go over well..
And if they cut even a tiny bit of benefits to fund it...
Good luck!
Now getting soldiers to actually fight is another thing.
Well, if you insist.
Just remember that this is what the EUSSR has wanted to do for decades. And that Trump is 100% correct that the EUSSR has been buying from Russia all this time while decrying Russia; even going back to the 2000s the deals were called a “new Molotov-Ribbentrop”.
Europe never learns to stay out of Russia
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