China EU defense: Von der Leyen sees additional need of 500 billion

According to estimates by the European Commission, additional investments of around 500 billion euros will be needed over the next decade to efficiently protect the EU from threats from countries such as China or Russia. While China has increased its defense spending by 600 percent between 1999 and 2021 and Russia by 300 percent, the increase in the EU has been 20 percent, said Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday, according to participants at the EU summit.

She put the share of Russia's military and defense spending in its gross domestic product at more than seven percent. In Germany and many other EU countries, this figure is currently only around two percent or even significantly lower.

According to von der Leyen, one option for financing the necessary investments via the EU in the medium term is a possible increase in national contributions to the EU budget or so-called own resources, which include customs duties on imports into the EU and the EU plastic tax.

If the member states wanted to make large investments in the short term, borrowing would also be possible, but would then also have to be repaid via national contributions and own resources. The decision would have to be made by the member states, said von der Leyen according to information from participants. The German government, among others, has so far strictly rejected joint borrowing for defense projects.

On the other side are countries such as Poland and the Baltic states. They can well imagine taking out EU loans to better secure their borders with Russia and Belarus, for example.

According to participants, von der Leyen basically said that security and defense are common public goods. The costs of ensuring security and defense are not greater than the benefits.