The conflict in Ukraine has made it clear that soft power is not enough so the European Union needs to become a military power, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said on arrival at an EU summit on Tuesday, TASS reports.
“What we have learned from the Ukrainian war is that trade is not enough, the rule of law is not enough, it’s not enough to be a good civil power, we need to be also a military power,” he pointed out.
“Defense is the competence of member states,” Borrell noted. “Certainly, we should do more. But we have to do it all together. If every member state increases its expenditure, each one on their side, increasing by X percent what they already have, it would be a big waste of money because we will not correct the duplications that we have, it’s the same thing several times, neither the gaps, something that we don’t have. So we have to increase our expenditure in a coordinated manner and it’s not going to be easy because the army, defense capabilities, is the core of national sovereignty and to try to pull all the army development will require a lot of political skill,” the EU top diplomat added.
Borrell said that as head of the European Defense Agency, he would present a report at the event on putting together defense industries and the military. Earlier, the United States and NATO emphasized the need for the EU countries to increase their military spending to two percent of GDP.
