Our deterrence can only be backed by real numbers. How many weapons we have, how large is our army, wider military, and personnel numbers, and so on. That is why we need to move now with our implementation as quickly as possible. An interview with Andrius Kubilius, the European Union’s Commissioner for Defence and Space.
JOANNA MARIA STOLAREK: You are the very first European Commissioner for Defence and Space, which reflects how serious the European Union is taking the threats to the bloc's security. What is the aim of your position and mandate? Help our readers understand why the EU has elevated common defence to such a high level, and what priorities you are focusing on?
ANDRIUS KUBILIUS*: Well as you rightly mentioned, the creation of my portfolio is in some way evidence that the European Union is placing security and defence on a much higher level of importance. If you read, for example, the political guidelines of the Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, which were approved by the European Parliament last summer, it is very clear that there are two key priorities. First is security and defence, and second is competitiveness. If you ask why security and defence is such a priority, I think that there is no need for a very long explanation – it is definitely because of the threats coming from Russia. And that is why it is not only a priority for the Commission, but also a priority for the Polish presidency, which has a very good symbolic title for the presidency – “Security, Europe!”
Of course, this is something new for the EU and for the Commission. Before now defence and security were mainly the prerogative of member states, together with NATO, to decide on all the defence plans, and defence capabilities needed for the implementation of those plans. The European Commission was not so much involved in those issues because, according to the treaties, they are very much related to the defence industry and the capabilities of that industry to produce what is needed for the member states. And this is where the EU is coming from, not as a competitor to NATO or to member states in their defence planning, but as a provider of added value to assist member states to develop their industries. The aim is to allow member states to implement their capability targets in a much more rapid way. Unlike NATO, the European Commission has possibilities according to treaties to implement industrial policy. It has possibilities to raise additional funds for defence, and that is what we are doing now.
ADAM REICHARDT: You've recently been tasked with preparing a special white paper for European defence, which is being debated quite a bit around Europe right now. Could you summarize the most important conclusions that are coming from this document for the EU member states?
The conclusions are quite clear. The threats which Europe is facing are defined by analyses coming from different intelligence services, for example from German or Danish bodies, that Russia could be ready to test NATO’s Article 5 (that an attack on one NATO country is an attack on all – editor’s note). And some intelligence indicates Russia plans to start a new aggression against European NATO members, especially in the neighbourhood of Russia, before 2030. That means that until then, we need to ramp up our production and to increase our defence capabilities to such levels that we would be ready to defend ourselves and deter any possibility of Russian aggression. We need to show Vladimir Putin that he will not be able to achieve anything if he will decide to make another stupid, criminal act of aggression. What we need to do, as outlined in the white paper, is focus on several priority areas. First of all, of course, is the question of how we can increase our support to Ukraine, because the defence of Ukraine is the defence of Europe. That is very clearly shown by the white paper, where the defence of Ukraine is included in the defence plans of the European Union. Second, we are looking at how we need to increase our own capabilities, especially in several areas. The EU needs to very quickly ramp up its production and acquire weapons which are ready for both the war of today and the wars of tomorrow. This means not only how do we scale up production of what we are producing now – ammunition, missiles, heavy weapon systems like tanks or artillery – but also, based on Ukraine’s experience, how new technologies are becoming a part of warfare, like drones, anti-drone systems, electronic systems and so on.
In addition, we need to address the systemic problems in our defence industry. Again, that is where we see very clearly that the EU can be of great assistance to member states to create a real single market for defence and avoid further fragmentation of the industry. This includes the so-called “ReArm Europe” plans, which were developed in parallel by the Commission. The Commission didn't announce them before the white paper was published, they are already at the implementation stage. Those financial possibilities are really of strategic importance. What is proposed in the ReArm Europe financial programme could allow member states to spend an additional 800 billion euros during the next four years on defence. And that will make quite a big impact.
JS: The big question when we are speaking about European defence is how the EU can coordinate with NATO and balance defence autonomy while supporting NATO structures. Can you speak more about how the EU strategy fits within the framework of NATO?
We are not competing with NATO and that was one of the basic principles which I said from the very beginning. We have really very good cooperation with NATO headquarters and with General Secretary Mark Rutte. NATO has a responsibility to develop so-called military plans and also to set military capability targets. In other words, what member states need to have in terms of military force, how many tanks, artillery systems, etc. This process is taking place inside of NATO. NATO headquarters are negotiating with member states on precise numbers and what they can promise to deliver. After that, those numbers, those capability targets, will become a basis for us to plan with our industries on production and how much it will cost. We are planning to have what we call an industry output plan with a very concrete picture of the landscape, what European industries need to produce, what they still are not able to produce and where else we can procure certain systems. So in this way the EU complements, not competes with, NATO.
AR: We want to also kind of take advantage of your experience and get some reflections from you, since you have served in the Baltic states, in particular as a former prime minister of Lithuania. How would you say that your understanding of Baltic security has helped shape your approach to European defence at large?
It is well known that in the Baltics, in Poland, in our region as well as in Nordic countries, we perhaps understand the threats of an aggressive Russia better than other countries, which may have a larger distance from Russia. That's why we speak in clearer language. We perceive those warning signals from intelligence services as real signals which we need to take into account. And when we have such a warning from intelligence services the question is then very simple. Are we reacting to those warning signals in a serious way? Or do we expect nothing will happen and we can stay relaxed.
From the very beginning I was repeating this old Latin formula that if you want peace, you need to be ready for war. We continue that. Of course, there are perhaps still different approaches in different member states, but as we can see from recent decisions in the European Council, such as when the Council agreed with the Commission on defence needs to be established, or that the ReArm Europe programme needs to be implemented. The governments in the EU are quite united in their understanding of the threats which perhaps we, in the Baltics, were the first to start to speak up about. In addition, of course, we need to see that global developments also are pushing Europeans to take more responsibility for our own defence. We were looking into transatlantic developments with a lot of attention. And we understand that in the longer term, again, not maybe tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, but perhaps the Americans will put more and more emphasis on the challenges to mitigate rising Chinese power, and that will be the reason why Americans will start to move more and more towards the Indo-Pacific with their resources. In that case, perhaps, they will diminish their presence on the European continent, and we need to be ready for such a development.
JS: Before we go to the US, one question about the threats, about what you said is happening in the Baltic region, threats like hybrid attacks, disinformation or border provocations. What can the EU do more of to strengthen resilience in the region?
We are talking about all the different issues which now are called hybrid war or war below the Article 5 threshold. We need to understand that from the Russian side this is part of a new form of modern warfare. For them there is no big difference in how to proceed, starting with influence in elections, influence on social networks, acts of sabotage, provocations and maybe even real military aggression. So, this new generation warfare, as some experts are calling it, demands from us new generation defence strategies. While we have a better understanding of what we need to do with our traditional defence capabilities, it is less clear how we can defend ourselves and prevent the spread of Russian hybrid threats. And we see developments like sabotage in the Baltic Sea, or sabotage in Poland and Lithuania, or even in Germany and France, and so on. Yet in my view, this demands a more strategic approach from us.
AR: I wanted to follow up with something you said earlier about Ukraine. You said that the defence of Ukraine is the defence of Europe, and that the EU has to support Ukraine because it's basically defending Europe as well. And with US support to Ukraine coming to an end at some point – maybe in the coming weeks or months – how can Europe invest in its own security and help Ukraine defend itself simultaneously?
We are now planning to spend around 3.5 per cent of GDP on our defence. And to implement this, we are using all the possibilities which we as the European Commission are creating, not only with loans but also with the possibility of spending an additional 1.5 per cent of national budgets for defence, which will not be included in deficit calculations. Thus, for our own defence, we are ready to spend around 3.5 per cent. Now if we are looking into how much we and the Americans were supporting Ukraine in the military sense, we know the numbers that during the first three years of the war, EU member states were providing military support of around 50 billion euros, while the Americans gave around 60 billion. If you calculate the numbers concerning not only member states, but also all European countries, like the United Kingdom, in addition to Norway, then we are coming to very equal numbers on both sides, around 60 billion euros during the three years of the war from the European Union and 60 billion from the American side.
If we will recalculate how much on average we spend during one year, it will be around 20 billion, both from the EU side and from the US. If we take our EU GDP and if you take American GDP, and you look at how much of our GDP is spent on military support, you will see that European Union assistance to Ukrainian defence was below 0.1 per cent and for the Americans, it was the same, below 0.1 per cent of GDP. As we are ready to spend 3.5 per cent on our defence, then we are able to still provide 0.1 per cent. My point is 0.1 per cent is not zero. However, it's not something which would be existentially impossible for us to increase. The question is how and in which way will our strategy support Ukraine and also what is our long-term strategy towards Russia. I hope that we will be much clearer in our strategic approach, which would allow us also to support Ukraine in a more effective way.
JS: Do you think Europe's defence industry will be able to produce at that speed and volume what we really need in order to meet the threats we currently face?
We have to acknowledge the challenge. The issue is how to ramp up our production and how we can take a lot of lessons from Ukraine. It would be good for us to learn lessons from Ukraine before we face a potential wider war, as Ukraine learned a lot of lessons about how to ramp up defence production. In 2022, the Ukrainian defence industry was able to produce weapons with a total amount of one billion euros per year. Last year, they were able to produce weapons with a total value of 35 billion euros. They’ve also developed their industry to produce very modern weapons, such as drones and anti-drone technologies, which we need to develop and learn how to use them.
I mentioned priorities and what we're doing now with the development of our defence capabilities, with support to industry, financial support and so on. We are also planning important steps forward with so-called simplification regarding the “Defence Omnibus”. In other words, these are our plans to review different regulations which, as industries are rightly saying, are not allowing them to follow this Ukrainian way of ramping up production.
AR: You mentioned this expression, if you want peace we should prepare for war. I think it refers to deterrence, strength in deterrence. In your view, do you think that the threat coming from Russia, but also Belarus, is continuing to grow? Is deterrence enough right now to stop Russia from using force to test NATO?
Well, as Mark Rutte is saying, at the moment, yes, we have capabilities to stop Russia. But if we do not look into the future, how things can develop during the next four or five years, then we will make a big mistake. Again, as Rutte says, in three months’ time, Russia will be able to produce more weapons than all NATO member states – the US, UK and the Europeans – are able to produce during one year. So it means that the Russians are stockpiling weapons to prepare themselves for whatever, potentially the possibilities of the next aggression. We understand from those public warnings from the German or Danish intelligence services that Russia is considering their plans to test Article 5. We need to be very clear that in such case, if Russia will continue its war economy and capabilities to produce mass amounts of weapons, and we do not increase our capabilities, then definitely in three or four years we will face big problems. We cannot expect that Putin will read our white paper and decide, okay, so those guys are very strong and I will not attack them. Our deterrence can only be backed by real numbers. How many weapons we have, how large is our army, wider military, and personnel numbers, and so on. That is why we need to move now with our implementation as quickly as possible.
Andrius Kubilius is a Lithuanian politician who is currently serving as the European Commissioner for Defence Industry and Space. He previously served as a member of the European Parliament and earlier as prime minister of Lithuania from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012.
This interview was first published by New Eastern Europe and will appear in issue 4/2025 of the magazine.
The views and opinions in this interview do not necessarily reflect those of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.