“We will establish a strategic compass and it is not a response to the war in Ukraine, but it is part of the response, because it has to make us stronger militarily,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Monday, before a meeting with EU foreign and defense ministers.
The document prepared for this meeting and seen by AFP warned that “the European Union is a society that is ill-equipped to deal with the current threats and challenges.”
The battle groups created in 2007 will be used by the European Union to form this response force of 5,000 soldiers.
The European Union’s Department of Foreign Affairs noted that “the combat groups are ready to operate but have never been used, due to a lack of political will and financial means.”
The force will be made up of “land, air and sea components” and equipped with transport capabilities to be able to “carry out rescue and evacuation interventions for European citizens” caught in a conflict. The Europeans lacked this ability to replace the Americans during the evacuation of Kabul in August 2021.
The European Union’s military commitments will be discussed with US President Joe Biden, Thursday, at an extraordinary NATO summit, followed by a meeting of European Union heads of state and government dedicated to discussing the consequences of the war in Ukraine on security in Europe.
And the United States has again deployed more than 100,000 soldiers and massive military means in Europe to contribute to strengthening the defense on the eastern borders of NATO.
Sharing the cost of the capabilities deployed in the Baltic states, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia will be on the agenda.
No quantitative target was included in the commitments made by the European Union. But all NATO countries, 21 of which are members of the European Union, have pledged to allocate 2 percent of their GDP to military spending in 2024.
Germany, Belgium and Denmark, three countries far behind in this commitment, announced an increase in their budgets.
Europeans will also invest in capabilities that they currently lack, including drones, combat systems, tanks, anti-aircraft and missile defense systems.
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