EU seeks to kickstart defence push to counter Russian threat, US retreat

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00:00We're going to turn our focus to Europe now, in particular the continent's drive for defence

00:04autonomy. The EU Commission laying out its vision today, calling on member states to

00:08boost military spending, pool resources on joint defence projects and buy more European

00:14arms. The executive body outlined those proposals in a white paper on defence, which it believes

00:19will make Europe stronger and more sufficient by 2030. Let's speak to Dave Keating, France

00:2624's Brussels correspondent now. David, good to see you. Just take us through what this

00:32white paper had to say.

00:34Yeah, this white paper is really putting meat on the bones of the rearm EU strategy that

00:42was announced very hurriedly two weeks ago, the morning after the US froze its aid to

00:48Ukraine. Essentially, the white paper got pre-empted. They had to put a lot of it out

00:52earlier, but we didn't have a lot of the details. So now we have the details that are

00:57going to be up for discussion when the EU's prime ministers and presidents come here to

01:01Brussels for their summit tomorrow. The most contentious parts of this have to do with

01:08some of the specifics about how this funding is going to work. So, there's going to be

01:13a loan program called SAFE, which will be 150 billion euros, which member states of

01:19the EU can borrow from in order to buy military equipment. However, how that will be financed

01:26is controversial because the idea is for the Commission to go to the markets and raise

01:31money there using the EU's common debt. That's something that the northern countries, the

01:36Germanic Protestant countries don't like, the so-called frugals. They opposed it for

01:41a long time, but it was done for the first time during COVID and the Commission wants

01:46to do it again. That's going to make for some fireworks. Tomorrow, Germany has recently

01:50exited the frugals club, now willing to take on more debt. Then there's also this provision

01:56that the spending that would come through this EU program would have to be by European.

02:03They would have to spend it on European military equipment for 65% of the fund. 65% would need

02:10to be equipment made in Europe. This is an idea pushed by France. The reason is that

02:16if these EU countries buy their arms from American companies, the US government can

02:22stop those arms from being used. It's come up a couple of times in the past three years

02:28where EU member states wanted to send arms to Ukraine, but those arms were made by American

02:32companies and the US government said no. So, France is saying, look, we can't be reliant

02:38on the US and this is too risky, having the possibility that the US government forbids

02:43us from using these weapons that we're buying, and so we should buy from European companies.

02:48This idea isn't so popular with other countries, particularly in the EU's east. They're saying

02:53Europe just doesn't have the capacity to be able to approve all of this. So, we'll see

02:58what happens tomorrow with those discussions about the common debt and with the Buy European

03:03clause. Another possible skirmish tomorrow about these plans is the idea to use cohesion

03:09policy funds in order to fund defense investments. Those funds are actually for poor regions

03:16of the EU to bring them up to richer region standards. They're very important to southern

03:20European countries, and so Italy's Prime Minister, Giorgia Maloney, has said Italy will not use

03:26any of those cohesion funds for military expenditure. She has not been very enthusiastic about Italy

03:33spending more on its military in general, and I think if there's any suggestion that

03:38EU countries are actually going to be pressured to use that cohesion funding for military

03:43spending, she's going to push back hard tomorrow.

03:47Have any of the other member states been reacting to the proposals put forward by the Commission

03:51today?

03:54Well we already know that Hungary's Viktor Orban will not sign up to this. When I was

03:59talking to member state representatives today, they made very clear that as far as they know,

04:04Orban has not changed his stance in opposing all of this, and so they're going to go around

04:08him again, like they did two weeks ago at the emergency summit. They adopted their conclusions

04:13on supporting Ukraine with just 26 of the 27 member states excluding Orban. They're

04:19going to do so again. It's entirely possible. A lot of these traditions of having national

04:25vetoes in the Council are just that, traditions. They're not law. They can be worked around.

04:30The thing is that countries don't like to do it because then they set a precedent that

04:34national vetoes can't be used, and there's nervousness about ceding that kind of power

04:40to the EU. Nevertheless, the situation is obviously very dramatic and very urgent at

04:44the moment, and the other countries have really lost patience with Viktor Orban, so he won't

04:48be able to veto tomorrow. So that'll leave it for the rest of them, the other 26. Another

04:54one to watch is Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico. He has been on Team Orban in

04:59terms of siding with Russia rather than Ukraine and saying that the EU should really shut

05:03up and take a step back here while Trump holds his negotiations with Vladimir Putin. Last

05:10two weeks ago, he did sign up to the conclusions. Will he do so again tomorrow? That remains

05:15to be seen. Yeah, we'll have to see. Dave, thank you so much for bringing us up to speed

05:19there. Dave Keating reporting live there from Brussels.

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