Andrius Kubilius. Keynote Speech At The Berlin Security Conference

2024-11-20 | EU defence and security

Andrius Kubilius, MEP, Commissioner-Designate for Defence and Space

Berlin, 20.11.2024

 

Dear Participants of the Berlin Security Conference,

Let me thank the organizers of the Conference for inviting me, at the moment still just a Commissioner-designate.

Nevertheless, it is quite certain – the EU will have its first-ever EU Commissioner for Defence and Space.

Until now the European Union was not considered an important player in European defence issues.

However, this notion is changing.

I will not elaborate on why the EU needs a Commissioner for Defence. Putin’s war against Ukraine provides the biggest share of answers to this question.

Let’s concentrate instead on what the European Union needs, wants, and can do to strengthen European defence.

Until now it looked like the European defence is a business for NATO and Member States only.

But the times are changing.

For me, it is crystal clear – no matter the changes in our security environment, one thing will not change: the European Union has never competed, is not competing, and will not compete with NATO on European defence. It is NATO that prepares and implements our defence plans, it is NATO that takes care about high military command. The EU does not seek to compete with NATO on those issues.

What the EU can do, is to bring added value to assist EU Member States (that are also NATO members) in developing defence capabilities and defence resources needed for the implementation of NATO defence plans. The EU can do what NATO cannot: raise additional funds for defence and introduce new legal regulations, which can help Member States to develop their defence resources.

What are those capabilities and resources that the EU can help to develop and sustain?

There are four types of defence resources, necessary for defence both before and during the course of a war:

– defence equipment and services, including space services; they must be ready and available at the stage of preparation for defence;

– trained military personnel, which could be mobilised in case of war;

– military mobility and logistics;

– military industry capability on European soil, able and ready to produce what is needed, located close to a frontline, if the war comes;

As things stand, we in Europe have some challenges with regard to all those capabilities and resources.

To better understand those challenges, we need to look into threats to our security:

First of all, as you may know, the Mission letter, which I received from the Commission President, tasks me, together with High Representative Kaja Kallas, during the first 100 days of our mandate to prepare and publish a “White Paper on European Defence”. This White Paper shall define the measures to help Europe to ready itself for “the most extreme military contingencies”. In other words, the White Paper must describe how the EU will prepare itself for the possibility of Russian aggression against EU Member states.

This is a strong, open, and realistic language about the biggest threat that we are facing.

As you know, various recent intelligence assessments, including a German one, suggest that Russia may test the resolve of the EU or NATO by the end of this decade, meaning until 2030 at the latest.

The Kiel Institute, also a German research centre, in its recent paper has revealed a sobering conclusion – Russia, with its war economy, in a 6 month period can produce everything the German Army has in its stocks.

According to another expert assessment, if evaluated in Purchasing Power Parity terms, in the next year Russia will spend more for its military than all EU-27 MSs will.

On the other hand, analysis of our own defence capabilities’ situation demonstrates that we are quite below the so-called NATO Capability Targets.

As openly articulated in the Report of President S.Niinistö: “Currently, the collective inventory of the capabilities of EU Member States (most of which are also NATO allies) continues to show serious gaps and shortfalls, including long-standing dependencies on the US, especially in high-intensity operations. As identified in recent experiences and reflected in capability planning processes, the EU-27 are lacking in nearly everything from ammunition and strategic enablers to high-end capabilities.”

In the light of low level of our preparedness, there are two strategic factors, that we need to have in mind when discussing Europe’s defence needs:

  • firstly, we must urgently prepare ourselves for the possibility of Russian aggression against the EU;
  • secondly, we need to prepare for a longer-term challenge, that the US will be forced to shift more and more from defence of Europe towards mitigation of China’s rising military power.

In my personal view, that is what our “White Paper on European Defence” will need to be about: how we will prepare to meet, deter, and defend ourselves against the most extreme military contingencies in such a “reality landscape”, both in the short term and also in the longer-term timeframe.

Today, I will concentrate my comments on the short-term challenge. That means Russia, its war against Ukraine and the possibility of Russia’s aggression against the EU.

Personally, I would like to see the upcoming White Paper to focus on 3 most important blocks, where we need to come to an agreement on urgent common decisions, necessary to be implemented either to diminish the threats or to be ready to defend ourselves.

Those 3 blocks should focus on:

1. our military support for defence of Ukraine;

2. ramping up our defence industry production in order to meet NATO Capability Targets not until 2044, but by 2030;

3. defence financing – how will we finance the urgent needs of our defence preparedness.

Before moving to a short description of the content of those 3 building blocks, I would like to remind you that, if you feel the need to employ your intellectual potential during Christmas vacation, you are welcome to use it on drafting some of your ideas and proposals for the White Paper. I cannot promise you, that we will be able to include all of your ideas, but we will be very grateful for your input.

Now, let me share with you my own thoughts on those 3 building blocks of the White Paper.

First of all – on Ukraine.

Why defence of Ukraine is such an important part of our plan for our readiness to meet the most extreme military contingencies, i.e. Russia’s military aggression against the EU?

First, because Ukraine’s defence depends exclusively on the Western, including the EU’s, military support.

Second, if we fail in our support, and Ukraine is forced to surrender and accept the so-called “peace” treaty, drafted according to Putin’s conditions, Russia can turn against the EU or NATO much sooner than we are expecting.

As NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has recently commented in “Politico”: “So far, our support has kept Ukraine in the fight. But we need to do much more in order to shift the conflict’s trajectory”.

That is why, when we are talking about our readiness to “meet the most extreme military contingencies”, first of all, we need to do everything to “shift the trajectory of Russia’s war against Ukraine”. We need to understand that such a shift depends only on us. Our support for Ukraine must be larger and more effective. As the Commission President has declared in the Political Guidelines for the new Commission: “The best investment in European security is investing in the security of Ukraine.” Let’s start to invest much more in the security of Ukraine!

Few thoughts on the Second building block: on ramping up defence industry production to meet NATO Capability Targets until 2030, instead of the current target date of 2044;

First of all, within the EU we need to build a clear understanding on what is the actual gap between the so-called NATO Capability Targets (which NATO is currently redefining after 3 years of Russia’s war against Ukraine), and the currently available defence capabilities of the EU Member States. As President Niinistö has warned us, there are “serious gaps and shortfalls” in the defence capabilities of EU Member States. After some exchange of information, which I had with some experts and officials, I would like to stress: those are “very, very serious gaps and shortfalls”.

Recently “Die Welt” published an article on the upgrade of NATO defence plans. It is said that NATO is asking its Member States to prepare additional 49 brigades, which will need further 1200 tanks, 900 pieces of artillery, 2700 Infantry Fighting Vehicles, 3000 Armoured personnel carriers; 1170 Anti-aircraft ground-based units, etc.

If we fail to fill the gaps and shortfalls between what is and what should be, we will continue to create a temptation for Putin to test us.

Once we have a clear quantitative evaluation of the gaps across the capabilities and types of weapons, we must answer a clear political question – how will we fill those capability gaps most urgently?

Should we continue as before, slowly and incrementally? Such development of defence capabilities has led us to the gaps and shortfalls we are discussing today.

Or should we rather start to radically change our way of doing things in defence and understand the need of a radical “overhaul” of the European defence, as the Commission President urged all of us in her statement for the Globsec Conference in Prague this summer?

A threat analysis I quoted earlier, warns all of us, that Russia can be ready to test us before the end of this decade. The warning was issued. We don’t have the luxury of proceeding with incrementalism in defence any longer. The challenge and the urgency of the “overhaul” of the entire defence system requires a kind of “Big Bang” approach.

Such a “Big Bang” approach requires producing a clear Industry Output Plan, based on the analysis of capability gaps according to NATO evaluations and covered by European production of defence equipment where we have capability gaps, with a clear target date to fulfil this Plan around 2030.

The most politically sensitive issue will be how we will approach the European defence industry with the European Industry Output Plan: should we continue as before – each Member State decides how to fill its capability gaps and traditionally approaches the industry on its own; or should we push and incentivise Member States to use more of the joint procurement, which will then lead to an incremental improvement of the situation; or should we go for the “Big Bang” approach – all the Member States agree for immediate joint procurement of all the needed defence equipment for Member States? A similar approach was used by EU Member States during the pandemic when the Commission had a mandate from all the Member States to procure the needed vaccines.

The “Big Bang” approach will have several very important advantages: the European industry will see our united and clear vision, it will see what is needed and how big is the aggregated demand, and that will bring long-term contracts to the industry, as a real much-needed guarantees to the industry for the expansion of their production capacities; and because of the scale economy, it will significantly cut the costs of production and the equipment price for Member States.

We need to agree that we can accomplish the “Big Bang” in our defence. And we need to declare it publicly and loudly now, to send a message to Putin that he will lose the war, which he wages against Europe.

In addition to the “Big Bang” on conventional capabilities, which demands prompt and large-scale ramp-up of our industry production capabilities, we need to decisively move into the area, where our defence capabilities can be created only with realisation of Defence projects of Common European Interest, such as “European Air Defence Shield” or “European Space Defence Shield”, which cannot be realised by any country alone. The same goes for filling the gap on strategic enablers, achieved only if we work together. The same goes for modernisation and innovations in our defence industry: we can do it only together or if not, we will continue losing in competition to the United States or China.

Togetherness is a very practical thing, – with togetherness, we can replenish and build up much more of what we need in terms of traditional and advanced defence capabilities with the same amount of money when comparing with what we can procure if we continue to do it separately each on our own.

As it was said by a well-known historical personality decades ago: “it’s the economy, stupid!”

And finally – on the Third building block of the White Paper: financing of defence – how will we finance our urgent needs for defence preparedness?

In my view, defence financing is the most important block among the 3 building blocks, because without proper investment into defence we will achieve nothing: there will be no much-needed support for Ukraine’s defence and no “Big Bang” in overhaul of European defence systems.

There are 3 issues, of the same importance, which we need to tackle without delay as regards the defence finances:

1. Defence spending line in the next MFF, which will become operational in 2028. This defence spending line should be significantly larger comparing with the same line in the current MFF (only 10 bln EUR for defence);

2. It is obvious, we have no luxury to wait until the new MFF comes into force in 2028. During 2025, we need to agree on how we will finance the so-called “additional 500 bln euros for defence during next decade”, as it was argued in the Draghi Report. We need to understand – either we all find an agreement on a financial defence package, or we will stay unprepared to meet those urgent, most extreme military contingencies. We need to remember, that preparedness costs a lot of money, but non-preparedness costs much, much more.

3. Finally, we need to find a constructive solution on how to convince the EIB, other IFIs and private banks in Europe not to be afraid to invest more actively into the European defence industry. The deficit of such financing is one of the most painful obstacles for European defence industry plans to expand their production lines and capabilities. It puts European industry into a totally uncompetitive environment compared with the defence industry in the United States.

********

These are my thoughts on the forthcoming White Paper on European Defence.

Once again, I invite you to use your Christmas break to produce an intellectual contribution to the White Paper. I am very pleased with the very first such contribution sent to us by the European Defence and Space Industry Association and containing a number of interesting suggestions.

********

Let me conclude by stressing again: we ALL are in the same boat – militaries, industries, CEOs and politicians, citizens of the EU, and citizens of Ukraine, all of us. And we find ourselves in very stormy waters.

So, either we row in a synchronised way and by joining all our forces to overcome the storms of today, or each one of us will stay alone at the mercy of the storms and our aggressive adversaries.

I am in favor of rowing together. I am in favor of the “Big Bang” approach! And I am strongly in favor of putting such a strategic language in the upcoming White Paper on European Defence!

Thank you for your attention.

×