Former EU military staff: Europe up for military buildup

AlArabiya English

Europe is up for military independence and stepping up its defenses to depend less on the US, the former director general of European Union military staff Lieutenant General David Leakey says.

Transcript

00:00I mean Europe is essentially getting the message here from Washington that it has

00:05to stand on its own two feet. It's not a new message, they've heard it in not so

00:11many words in the first Trump presidency. Are they up to it? Not at the moment no

00:17and the Europeans have acknowledged that and I think everybody has acknowledged

00:23any dispassionate observer of the Europeans would say that to a certain

00:27extent the Europeans have have depended on the insurance policy which has been

00:35underwritten by the US both politically and military and that that is

00:40acknowledged that's a given and are the Europeans up for it? I think so when you

00:46see you with the the very strong resolve by for example these Scandinavian

00:52countries and the Germans their Parliament has authorized a complete and

00:58historic change to the country's borrowing rules so that they can

01:04invest in rearming and in their defense industry. The European Union has said

01:10that it will make available I think it's 800 billion euros over a period of time

01:15so the Europeans are stepping up to the plate now. It is going to take some

01:20time. Developing a defense capability isn't something that happens overnight.

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