By AFP | 2024-03-05

BRUSSELS -- European Union (UN) officials March 5 unveiled an ambitious proposal to massively boost weapon production and procurement in the bloc to shift from a reliance on US arms and in reaction to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"We must take more responsibility for our own security, while, of course, remaining fully committed to our NATO alliance," said European Commission Vice President Margrethe Vestager.

"We need to get that transatlantic balance right," she said, adding, "An improved ability to act will make us a stronger ally."

The commission's European Defence Industrial Strategy aims, over the long term, to give incentives to European arms manufacturers to invest more, make their production more agile and -- for the first time -- collectively catalogue what they have available.

The question of financing the ambitious initiative, though, is problematic for a continent that has trimmed defense investment for decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

EU internal market commissioner Thierry Breton has spoken of an ultimate need for some €100 billion ($110 billion) for the EU to rival the Pentagon and US defense industry.

To kickstart the project, the commission plans to set aside €1.5 billion from the EU's current budget that runs to 2027 -- an amount Vestager acknowledged "is not a lot of money" given the scale of the initiative.

"But it can still work as an incentive, as a bonus... because the real funding for a stronger defense comes from member states and that funding will increase over the years to come," she said.

Shaken by Russian aggression

The spur for the proposed defense industry strategy was Russia's full-on invasion of Ukraine two years ago.

The bloc is now facing a "new security paradigm" with an expansionist Russia that now has a wartime economy, say EU officials.

"To counter the return of high-intensity war on our border, we have decided to kick up a gear," Breton said.

While the EU and EU countries have supported Ukraine financially and with military weapons and equipment, arms production has come up short, with the bloc missing a target to give Kyiv a promised one million artillery shells.

Helped by an existing EU Act in Support of Ammunition Production, the bloc is now providing Ukraine about 80,000 shells per month, said Breton.

Since Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine to June last year, the EU's 27 member countries spent more than €100 billion on defense buys, said Vestager.

"Almost 80% of that was spent outside of the European Union, and the US alone accounted for more than 60% of this spending. This is no longer sustainable," she said.