The Ukrainian president said aloud yesterday, at the Munich Security Conference, what everyone recognizes something more discreetly in the Bayerischer Hof halls. “The time has come to create European armed forces,” he said, and justified the urgency remembering … that Europe needs to take the risk of a war in its territory as soon as possible and build a common army so that “decisions about Europe are taken in Europe.” »I believe in Europe and urge them to act for their own good, for their nations, their houses, their children, for our shared future,” he defended during his speech, “we need confidence in our own strength so that other people respect power European”.
In his meeting in Munich with the American vice president, JD Vance, Volodimir Zelenski demanded “security guarantees” before the peace conversations promoted by the Trump administration. He warned that Ukraine has “few possibilities” to survive the Russian invasion without external military support and, although Vance did not completely rule European troops that are occupied with that task.
The fact is that both Vance and Zelenski found yesterday understanding in Munich, by the heads of European governments present at the Security Conference. No one opposed to the possible formation of a European army that, however, runs into the financing wall.
Economic data
“Look, I talk to European leaders constantly and, when the doors close, what they tell me is that if they propose that openly, they could never convince their voters, and that is the real problem for decision making,” Scholz acknowledged, “If things were not like that, all European governments would be acting on that line.”
To the European army debate yesterday added economic data. An analysis of the Kiel Institute for the world economy suggests that a higher defense expense could stimulate the German economy, stagnant from the pandemic. If the State Spend 100,000 million euros More in defense, the gross domestic product will also increase by about 100,000 million euros, calculates.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (D) and Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski
EFE
Economist Clemens Buet recommends even limiting the update of retirement pensions at 1% per year and reducing tax exemptions and expenditure in refugees by half, together with a rise from a sales tax point to annually collect 94,000 million euros additional to defense. Even the German Economy Minister, the ecopacifist Robert Habeck, insists since summer the need to strengthen the arms industry, due to intelligence reports.
Responsible for FORSVARETS EFTERRETNINGSTJENEDanish defense intelligence, have warned in Munich that Russia could fight a large -scale war against Europe in five years if “perceives NATO as militarily weakened or politically divided” and have insisted on increasing the training and coordination of European military forces to prepare for joint responses.
According to Zelenski, the deadline is shorter: «Russia is preparing 15 divisions. Between 100,000 and 150,000 soldiers are being trained to aggravate the situation in the direction of Belarus in less than a year. I am not sure if they are going to attack Ukraine, but they are going to attack. Maybe Ukraine, perhaps Poland, perhaps the Baltic countries ».
The truth is that European armies have been increasing their capacity for coordination and response time. The numerous joint military maneuvers since the beginning of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine have evidenced deficits that are being remedied. And one of the first people who began to work bureaucratically in that process, as Defense Minister of Angela Merkel, was precisely Ursula von der Leyen.
In 2016 he wrote in Berlin a ‘Bank of Defense’ book ‘in which “the Bundeswehr was reoriented towards multinationality and integration” with other European armies and in which a European security and defense union was set as the goal term. He suggested that he could progressively approach in the framework of permanent structured cooperation, to allow European countries to more cooperation in the field of security and defense policy “in a reliable, coherent and sustainable way.” He even contemplated the creation of a civic-military central headquarters.
Stability pact
At the Munich Security Conference, von der Leyen has now been favorable to suspend the stability pact for the second time to allow the euro member states to increase the expense in defense and open the door to that project. It intends to use the exemption clause of the stability pact and has advanced that “I will propose to activate the exhaust clause for investments in defense.” In the crisis situation in which Europe is, it is important to “move mountains,” he insisted, and has trusted that Member States approve his proposal.
According to the president of the European Executive, from the beginning of the war in Ukraine the European spending in defense has increased from 200,000 million to 320,000 million euros together. “But We will have to achieve progress significant in this area “, he warns,” and we have to be ambitious. “
He has suggested the option that has been discussed in Brussels for months: launching a new investment program financed with community loans, similar to the reconstruction fund during the pandemic. Europe must “set our investment priorities in a European approach as a previous requirement for a mass defense package,” we said, we need for that “a more pragmatic, focused and determined Europe.”
France and Poland are firm defenders of the project, while voices in the United Kingdom recognize their inability to lead a peace mission in Ukraine. “40,000 soldiers would be necessary, about 10,000 every six months in rotation, and there are no available troops,” Richard Dannatt, chief of staff of the British Armed Forces until 2009. ” Cold in the world, “Bayerischer Hof recognizes British diplomatic sources,” and in situations like this what is appropriate is to provide a thicker blanket. “
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