ReArm Europe: Why the southern Europeans are struggling with the plan

Spain's head of government Pedro Sánchez made it clear at the EU summit that he did not like the name of the ReArm Europe armaments program. Although more armaments are necessary, the EU must emphasize its trump cards as a soft power more strongly, he said. The threat situation in the south is also different from that on the eastern flank: For Spain, the focus is on border protection, the fight against terrorism and cyber attacks.

At the summit, a rift between Southern and Eastern Europeans became clear during the discussion on the White Paper on defense and Kaja Kallas' Ukraine aid package. Giorgia Meloni also criticized the name of ReArm Europe, integrated into the White Paper by Ursula von der Leyen. The name was "misleading" for citizens, said Italy's head of government. She criticized the fact that the plan to strengthen defense capabilities was unilaterally focused on the procurement of weapons. The Italian public's response to the rearmament plans from Brussels has been largely negative. The Commission President's plan could now be renamed "Readiness 2030" as a concession to the critics, said a diplomat.

It also remained doubly unclear at the summit whether countries such as Italy, Spain and Portugal will actually make use of the opportunities offered by the rearmament plan. Specifically, this concerns the new "Safe" instrument with a credit volume of EUR 150 billion to promote joint defense projects. Or whether the southern Europeans will activate the national escape clause to be able to increase their defense spending by up to three percent without coming into conflict with the Stability Pact. On the one hand, they assess the urgency differently to the countries on the eastern flank as well as the Scandinavians, Finland, Germany and the Netherlands.

Secondly, Ursula von der Leyen's plan will lead to new national debt in the individual countries, as Meloni criticized before leaving Rome. The Prime Minister also emphasized that her government does not intend to redirect cohesion funds to projects to promote the arms industry or military mobility, for example. France welcomed the Commission President's rearmament plan in Brussels on Thursday. However, according to diplomats, Emmanuel Macron urged that the option of joint debt should be the next step. Greece's Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis expressed similar sentiments. In addition to loans, grants are also needed: "I think we need to talk seriously about joint debt."

The rift between northern and southern Europeans is similar when it comes to supporting Ukraine. Denmark alone has so far provided more military aid to Ukraine than Italy, Spain and France combined, said one diplomat. An imbalance that Kaja Kallas wanted to rectify with her plan to mobilize an additional EUR 40 billion for military aid to Ukraine this year and to compensate for a possible loss of US support. Germany, the Netherlands with the countries on its eastern flank and the Scandinavians supported the plan from the outset. At the summit, however, the foreign minister had to scale back her ambitions further. A realistic plan would be to mobilize five billion euros for two million artillery shells, said the Estonian upon arrival.

France and Italy also opposed this shrunken package. Priority was given to the payment of the EUR 18 billion from the windfall profits on the Russian state bank funds. The critics wanted more details on the Kallas package before committing to new figures. "We also know that the budget deficits in most European countries are a cause for great concern and that there are problems," said the chief diplomat. Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo backed the initiative and lamented the headwind that the Foreign Affairs Commissioner is experiencing from some EU capitals. Many countries were "not performing as required" when it came to arms deliveries to Ukraine.

The discussion is likely to continue next week in Paris. According to diplomats, Macron is planning another summit with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, European partners and third countries such as Canada in order to support Ukraine, also with a view to the talks between the USA and Russia on a ceasefire.