ICDS organised a Lennart Meri Conference side session at this year’s GLOBSEC Forum 2024 titled Defending Europe: Let Us Not Despair, But Act on 31 August.
Speakers at the event were Hanno Pevkur, Estonia’s Minister of Defence; Angus Lapsley, NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defence Policy; Camille Grand, distinguished policy fellow at ECFR and former NATO Assistant Secretary General; and Antoine de Braquilanges from Helsing. The discussion concentrated on Europe’s readiness to defend, NATO capability gaps and the plans of the new comission to build up European defense industry.
Moderator Helga Kalm (director of the Lennart Meri Conference) stressed in her introduction that Russia’s war on Ukraine has revealed the sorry state of European militaries and defence industries. For too long we have enjoyed the so-called “end of history” peace, we have focused our militaries on out of area operations and have not invested enough in our military capabilities or in the defence industrial base. From 1999 to 2021 combined EU spending on defence increased by 20%. In that time, Russia’s defence spending increased by almost 300% and China’s by almost 600%.
Ms Kalm also pointed out that on the other hand we still spend a lot on defence. Europe’s GDP is ten times larger than that of Russia, European NATO allies and EU member states together outspent Russia four to one on defence in 2023; their combined military forces are larger than those of Russia or the US.
Since the start of Russia’s war on Ukraine, Europe’s defence industry has increased its ammunition production capacity by 50 per cent and aims to produce over 2 million shells per year by the end of 2025 – double its capacity in February 2022. It is however estimated that only by 2026 will Europe be able to produce enough ammunition for Ukraine.
There have been some successful joint European acquisitions – like the German-led European Sky Shield Initiative focused on air and missile defence.
EU has understood that it is lagging behind and in March 2024 adopted a new European defence industrial strategy (EDIS) plan that aims to reduce fragmentation in the European defence industry and reduce weapons imports. While it is a good start, it is often argued that it doesn’t have enough teeth or money behind it. European industry often says that they do not increase production because they don’t have long-term visibility or contracts. But now majority of NATO European allies spend more than 2% on defence and new NATO defense plans lay out the requirements for the next years. European acquisitions should not be too hard to predict.
As Ursula von der Leyen put in the Political Guidelines for the Next European Commission: “The next five years will define Europe’s place in the world for the next five decades. We cannot take the risk of being underprepared or over reliant.“
