European Commission calls for higher military spending and speeding up Ukraine's accession to EU
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the outline of a series of measures to make defense investments more flexible through a safeguard clause in budgets.
Ursula von der Leyen at the Security Conference in Munich.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced Friday that she will propose a relaxation of E.U. budget rules to allow the bloc's countries to invest more in defense.
"I will propose to activate the safeguard clause for defense investments. This will allow [E.U.] member states to substantially increase their defense spending," Von der Leyen told the Munich Security Conference.
The so-called safeguard clause is a mechanism provided for in the budgetary regulations, called the Stability Pact, which allows for exceptions in cases of a severe economic situation or a crisis.
The clause was activated once, in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, to allow E.U. countries to increase their expenditures to exceptional levels.
In this case, it was not an acute economic crisis with severe recession, as happened during the pandemic, but the security threat posed by Russia and the urgency for the European bloc to strengthen its defense industry.
The European Commission itself estimated that the expansion, modernization and strengthening of the defense industry in the bloc will require investments of some $525 billion over the next decade.
Accelerating Ukraine's accession to the EU
"We have to speed up Ukraine's accession process. We are working on it, because Ukraine is part of our European family and this is where it has a future," von der Leyen said.
"This is an issue of immediate concern for Europe," she added. "The Ukrainian people, like us, have the greatest interest in seeing a just and lasting peace, especially if European countries are to ensure security and take responsibility for reconstruction."
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