EU must boost defence spending to counter Russia’s threat, says Kallas | NATO News

The top EU diplomat has said that EU members do not spend enough on defence.

Russia is posing an existential threat to the European Union’s security and the only way to address that is to increase spending on defence, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said.

While warning of a possible attack by Russia in the coming years, Kallas added that the EU had for too long offered Russia alternatives.

Kallas’s rallying cry was the latest in a slew of increasingly alarming warnings from European officials, who have been calling for a “wake-up call” on defence since Moscow’s tanks rolled into Ukraine in 2022.

“Many of our national intelligence agencies are giving us the information that Russia could test EU’s readiness to defend itself in three to five years,” she said, addressing the annual conference of the European Defence Agency in Brussels on Wednesday.

“Russia poses an existential threat” to Europe’s security “today, tomorrow and for as long as we underinvest in our defence”, she added.

Kallas also acknowledged United States President Donald Trump was right in saying that EU members do not spend enough on defence.

Earlier this month, Trump said NATO members should spend 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on defence – an increase from the current 2 percent goal and a level that no NATO country, including the US, currently reaches.

“The EU’s message to the US is clear. We must do more for our own defence and shoulder a fair share of responsibility for Europe’s security,” Kallas said.

EU countries have increased their military budgets since Russia’s war in Ukraine began. But politicians acknowledge they will have to go further as they struggle to match Moscow’s vast military output.

Last month, NATO chief Mark Rutte said Europe must “turbo-charge” defence spending and production if it is to deter Russia from launching a bigger war in the future.

“Time is not on Russia’s side. But it’s not necessarily on ours either. Because we are not yet doing enough. There should be no doubt in any of our minds that we must spend more to prevent war. But we also need to prepare for war,” Kallas said.