EU Defence Commissioner, Andrius Kubilius has proposed deeper integration of the bloc’s defense industry with Ukraine.
This comes as a US peace plan remains in flux and Russia’s unconventional warfare operations rattle the 27-nation bloc.
The European Union’s Defense Chief told EU lawmakers in Strasbourg, France, without mentioning the ongoing peace negotiations to end the war, that Ukraine’s defense industry “needs us but we need Ukraine’s defense innovations even more.”
He said that allowing Ukrainian access to the EU’s Defence Investment Program “makes it possible to procure defense equipment in, with and for Ukraine.”
EU lawmakers are due to hold a vote on a 1.5-billion euro ($1.7 billion) program, with 300 million euros ($345 million) slated for the Ukraine Support Instrument.
EU defense spending is expected to total around 392 billion euros (more than $450 billion) this year, almost double the amount of four years ago, before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
The Trump administration has signaled that it’s prioritizing US security on its own domestic borders and in Asia. It has told Europeans that they must fend for themselves and Ukraine in the future.
The EU started as a trading bloc designed to avert conflict but Russia’s war in Ukraine has spurred a shift in the Brussels-based bloc, heightening its defense and security posture.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, believes that about 3.4 trillion euros ($4 trillion) will probably be spent on defense over the next decade. To help, it intends to propose boosting the EU’s long-term budget for defense and space to 131 billion euros ($153 billion).
EU member countries are being urged to buy much of their military equipment within the bloc, working mostly with European suppliers — in some cases with EU help to cut prices and speed up orders. Under the road map, EU nations should only purchase equipment from abroad when costs, performance or supply delays make it preferable.
Meanwhile, Russia continues to rain attacks on Ukraine as the war persists. Ukraine’s energy ministry said that energy infrastructure had been hit, without giving details.
Ukraine’s emergency services said that six people, including two children, were injured in a Russian attack on energy and port infrastructure in the Odesa region. A Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s southern Rostov region overnight killed three people and injured eight others in the city of Taganrog not far from the border in Ukraine, Governor Yuri Slyusar said in an online statement.
Slyusar said that the attack damaged private houses and multistory residential blocks, unspecified social facilities, a warehouse and a paint shop.
Russian air defenses destroyed 249 Ukrainian drones overnight above various Russian regions and the occupied Crimea, the Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday, noting that 116 of the drones were shot down over the Black Sea.
Kibilius Suggests Tax Breaks For EU-based Defense Companies
Kubilius said that EU-based defense companies can apply for tax breaks and other financial incentives to fund so-called European defense projects of common interest that “no member state can ever build alone, but that will protect the whole of Europe,” like Eastern Flank Watch, Drone Defense Initiative or Space Shield.
He said that permitting Ukrainian companies to participate in these projects “allows us to inject Ukrainian military innovation in the European defense industry.”
Last week, the European Commission rolled out a new defense package to allow tanks and troops to deploy more rapidly across Europe as well as the EU Defense Industry Transformation Roadmap, which aims to simplify and unify regulations on the EU’s defense industry, and corral investment into domestic production of weapons, vehicles, satellites, shells and bullets.
READ ALSO: From Debt Default to Discipline: Mahama Shares Ghana’s Recovery Path
