Russia’s war in Ukraine and fear of being drawn into the conflict have pushed European leaders to rearm to make the bloc more autonomous and reduce its reliance on NATO for protection.
(Read here: The Russian army extends its offensive in Ukraine and approaches Kiev)
“The fear of war is very different between countries. For France, it seems very far away. But this is not true. (Russian) Iskander missiles are deployed in Belarus,” warned French President Emmanuel Macron.
(Also: Biden and Duque: what is coming for Colombia as an extra NATO ally)
Those short-range ballistic missiles are in principle capable of being fitted with nuclear warheads.
At the end of a difficult discussion, European leaders approved a joint statement in which they pledged to “substantially increase their defense spending.” That step would be to “increase the ability to act autonomously” and “ensure mutual assistance” in the bloc.
“The war came at a time when Europe and the United States were taking advantage of an excellent recovery,” says Jacob Kirkegaard, of the German Marshall Fund think tank, regarding the tensions generated by this change in arms logic. In line with Kirkegaard, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, assured that in just two weeks, the Russian invasion “considerably increased” the risks, announcing that the monetary institution reduced its growth forecast by half a point. euro zone in 2022, at 3.7 percent. The IMF also warned that it will lower its rates.
Faced with the threat, the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, proposed to the European leaders to release a new contribution of 500 million euros, to reach a total of 1,000 million, to finance the purchase of weapons requested by Ukraine. The funds will come from the European Fund for Peace, which has some 5,000 million euros, created and supplemented by the Member States outside the community budget.
In turn, the European Commissioner for Industry, Thierry Breton, advanced yesterday that if the defense expenses of the EU countries go from 1.5 percent of the current GDP on average to the 2 percent recommended by NATO, there would be between 65,000 and 70,000 million additional euros.
A margin that could balance the defense budget with that of Moscow. According to Eurostat and the World Bank, as of March 2, Russia spent 55,217.71 million on defense, which is equivalent to 4.26% of its national GDP.
With the war-military issue at the center of the table, it is estimated that other areas will suffer significant budget reductions, especially those of a social and health nature. The fight against climate change, a task in itself relegated at the global level, would be another of the great affected.
In two weeks, the EU has received more than 2 million refugees, only comparable to the influx of asylum seekers, mostly Syrians, between 2015 and 2016, explained the European Commissioner for the Interior, Ylva Johansson. “We are going to see more and more people fleeing Ukraine… We don’t know exactly how many, but I would say millions,” said the Swedish commissioner, emphasizing that this “is going to be a very big challenge, which is going to get worse, we have to prepare for it,” warned Johansson.
The Twenty-seven agreed to grant a temporary protection regime to Ukrainians that allows them to stay and work for at least one year in the EU.
To this end, the commission has proposed that the host states be able to use the unused funds from the 2014-2020 budget, which would free up approximately 420 million euros, and authorize the use of cohesion funds to finance integration measures.
Some 10 billion euros of the funds for 2022 from the React-EU program as part of the post-Covid recovery plan can also be used to finance actions in support of exiles from Ukraine, according to the commission, which also secured humanitarian aid of 500 million. euros for those fleeing the war. However, this entire budget does not include aid to migrants and refugees from other parts of the world.
European leaders are scheduled to resume the discussion on the military budget at the summit scheduled for March 24 and 25 in Brussels, and in addition the French president has already announced an exceptional defense summit in May.
The war in Ukraine was a heavy blow for the Europeans, which brought them face to face with reality. Suddenly they discovered the sorry state of the armed forces in Germany and its military dependency on NATO and the United States, and so they decided to speed up their investments.
Meanwhile, Russia yesterday expanded its bombardments to western Ukraineconsidered the safest area in the country -the closest to the NATO line- for being far from the front, while the number of refugees trying to leave the country continues to increase, when yesterday marked the 16th day of the Russian offensive.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from AFP and Efe
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