Russia’s hybrid war in Europe is already a reality, say the Baltic countries and Poland. And it may not stop at cyberattacks, sabotage and instrumentalization of migration, taking advantage of the most vulnerable. The EU countries neighboring Russia and Belarus demand from the community club a common drive and “extraordinary tools” to finance and implement a “line of defense” to fortify their borders against the “existential threat” that the Kremlin and its imperialist appetite represents for the Union. “We need a defense initiative to protect Europeans today and in the years to come,” say Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and Poland, four EU member states, in a letter to the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, and the the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
“Russia has not changed its strategic objectives, which include the reestablishment of buffer zones and spheres of influence of the past, which represent an existential threat to Europe and the transatlantic community,” the four Eastern European partners state in the letter to which Morning Express has had access. “The EU should use its tools and policies to improve support for building resilience and defense preparedness across the Union,” they claim.
The letter comes when the leaders of the 27 member states of the community club meet in Brussels this Thursday and Friday to agree on the distribution of the leadership of the Union for the next five years. They will also sign their security “commitments” with Ukraine to guarantee the country invaded by Russia their financial, political and diplomatic support in the face of Russian aggression. The Union and its members have already provided support to kyiv worth €100 billion, including €35 billion for weapons. The community club also opens the door to signing “broader security commitments,” according to the draft of the confidential agreement that this newspaper has seen. This pact is added to the one signed by several EU countries, including Spain.
Against a backdrop of global instability, EU leaders will also agree on their roadmap with new priorities for the next legislature in an updated strategic agenda in which defense and competitiveness are nuclear, especially in the face of the prospect of a war between Russia and Ukraine that is dragging on. So will the debate about how to finance it. The partners had demanded that Von der Leyen put options on the table before the summer to address the new defense strategy that will try to boost the European military industry. And among those options, many expected to see Eurobonds to pay for new needs with mutualized debt.
anti-aircraft shield
However, the president of the European Commission will choose to present them, instead, a series of “pan-European initiatives” for defense to open the debate and, then, it will be time to analyze how they are paid for. Among them will be the “anti-aircraft shield” proposed by their allies Donald Tusk, Polish Prime Minister, and the Greek Kyriakos Mitsotakis, to shield European skies from advanced unmanned aerial vehicles, electronic warfare, long-range missiles — including hypersonic cruisers—or fifth-generation fighters.
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Von der Leyen believes that if we talk first about funds and not about specific projects, and even more so in such a volatile European and global moment, the debate will end up derailing. However, to some Member States the approach of the German Christian Democrat leader, who does not want to get into thorny issues at a time when her continuity at the head of the European Commission is at stake, will be of little use to them.
In this scenario, the three small Baltic republics and Poland are putting forward their own initiative based on the so-called Eastern Shield and the Baltic defence line, projects, facilities and infrastructure underway or about to be underway on their borders with Belarus (considered a puppet of the Kremlin and a launching pad from which Russian President Vladimir Putin’s troops began part of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022) and Russia.
“We live in the shadow of war and our countries can feel what it means to be the frontline states of the EU,” say the four partners in their letter, also members of NATO and also the European allies that invest the most in defence (between 2.85% of their GDP in the case of Lithuania and 4.12% in Poland, above the 2% agreed in the Atlantic Alliance).
“In parallel with our support for Ukraine, we must commit to assuming greater responsibility for our own security and defense,” they emphasize. “We need to spend more and coordinate on defense initiatives within the EU and with NATO, which remains the basis of collective defense, combining our capabilities to protect, deter and defend our people and our territory,” they add in the letter. .
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