“We have never defended ourselves like this before” — What is Europe preparing for?

European Union member states have increased their defence spending by approximately 80 percent over the past five years.

TodayPress TV reports that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made the remarks during her State of the Union address to the European Parliament.

According to her, this significant shift in defence financing has enabled Europe to “fundamentally rethink its approach to ensuring security”, and Europe is now “in a position to defend itself better than ever before”.

However, the European Commission president acknowledged that Europe remains heavily dependent on the United States in matters of security. This dependence persists particularly in capabilities that are critical for conducting military operations, such as aerial refuelling and strategic airlift.

As Euractiv recalled, these strategic capabilities were included last year in von der Leyen’s list of nine defence capability gaps that the EU needed to address in order to be able to defend itself by 2030.

“Only together does Europe have sufficient capabilities to provide these,” von der Leyen stressed in this year’s address.

She also announced the creation of a new pan-European strategic mechanism aimed at strengthening the level of security. However, she did not disclose details of the initiative.

The European Commission president only said that the new mechanism would cover air and missile defence, strategic transport, aerial refuelling, space and cyberspace capabilities.

Giymat Mahir