“It’s worth getting rid of bureaucratic barriers since there’s a war in Europe and you cannot treat [the] defense industry the same way you’d treat, say, milk production,” Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said.
Germany’s Boris Pistorius rejected Trump’s 5 percent call, saying such a spending surge would eat up about 40 percent of Germany’s government budget. However, he did welcome NATO’s effort to announce the alliance’s new capability targets in June instead of October as originally planned.
The ministers — who heard from Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov via video link — also asked about joint ventures with Ukrainian defense companies to boost arms production. Umerov was in London with Defence Secretary John Healey; the U.K. was represented in Poland by Luke Pollard, the U.K.’s parliamentary under secretary of state for the armed forces.
The goal is to make Ukraine as strong as possible ahead of Trump’s presidency, as he has called for a swift end to the war.
The grouping of Europe’s five top defense powers, formed last year and meeting for the second time on Monday, aims to strengthen defense coordination at a time of rising geopolitical danger.
Kosiniak-Kamysz said the group’s next meeting in Paris will discuss in more detail how to finance the development of Europe’s arms industry, in order to make it a “flywheel” of the continent’s economy.
He added that NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, the EU’s foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas, and new Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius will also be present in Paris.
“Europe can and should be a leader in terms of security and defense, but it has to invest in it,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said.
