Yesterday, at the informal EU leaders meeting at Egmont Palace in Brussels, no concrete plans were drawn up with regard to Russian aggression on Europe and the Russian war in Ukraine. However, several European states pledged they will be increasing their defence spending including the UK, and also France which will be doubling its defence expenditure to €110 billion annually.
EU member states did not discuss any concrete plans for the war in Ukraine and on the the current Russian and Chinese sabotage attacks, the EU member-states only discussed the issue in terms of financing for patrols and legislation.
EU NATO members pledged to raise their defence spending above their 2% targets. Germany which has been increasing its defence spending also pledged to keep ramping up its military. The NATO countries currently not meeting their minimum 2% defence expenditure target are Portugal, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Canada, Belgium, Slovakia and Slovenia.
EU member states have also agreed that the EU should be spending in total up to €500 billion in defence spending from its funds for the next decade. Currently the EU spends only around €8 billion annually in defence expenditure. The annual defence budget of the United States exceeds $500 billion and Russia’s annual official military budget is set around $110 billion but this does not include the much larger credit-induced private expenditure in the Russian war effort.
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