Foreign Affairs Council: Remarks by High Representative Josep Borrell at the press conference
Today, the Council adopted the Strategic Compass during a joint session of the Ministers of Defence and Foreign Affairs. Both formation together. They finally approved after two years of work the Strategic Compass. I do not want to abuse the word “historic” that you use a lot here in Brussels, but it is certainly a turning point for the European Union as a security provider and a much important step for the European Common Security and Defence Policy.
I think that the adoption of this document sends a strong signal of unity and resolve. And it comes at a very important moment because we certainly need to increase our capacities on security and defence.
Certainly, it is not an answer to the Ukrainian war - we started working two years ago - but it is very timely that we approve this Strategic Compass in a moment in which I think every citizen in Europe can understand the purpose of a document that wants to increase the strength of the European Union as a security provider.
As I said, this is the result of two years of hard work, and I want to thank my team, the [European] External Action Service, and also all Ministers of Defence and Foreign Affairs who have been working on that for all this time - even this weekend, a lot of last minute work – to ensure that everybody was on board.
You have been hearing me talk about the Strategic Compass quite a lot during this long period of two years. And I want just to stress the fact that it is not an answer to the latest international developments, and in particular to the Russian military aggression in Ukraine.
It is an answer to the feeling that the European Union has to be more engaged, coordinating efforts of Member States in order to increase the capacity of all of us together - certainly in complementarity with NATO - to make Europe stronger.
When I presented the draft of the Compass that we presented to the Member States in November, I said “Europe is in danger”. And this sentence, well, many believed it was a matter of selling the product. To attract the attention of the people, to give a headline. Well, today I think everybody is convinced that Europe is in danger. That it is blatantly obvious due to the invasion of Ukraine. It is not rhetoric. On the contrary, this invasion - the war that is going on - is a ‘tectonic shift’ on the geopolitical landscape of Europe. And our reaction to the war has demonstrated that we, as the European Union, can act firmly and united. And today, the adoption of the Compass confirms this capacity.
The Compass will help us to step up our ability to act more robustly and decisively in response to crises, to secure our Union and European citizens, to increase our resilience, and to invest in the required capabilities and in defence innovation.
It is important to know how much Europeans are spending on their defence and to follow the evolution of military expenditures. Since the beginning of the century, passing by the Crimea action in 2014 until this moment – these figures are important to understand where we are, where are we coming from, and why we should react.
Today, the military expenditure in Europe - adding up all Member States - is about €200 billion, 1.5% of the GDP. It was decreasing until 2014 quite quickly. Since 2014, it has started increasing again to 1.5% [of the GDP]. But we have to invest more, and I am sure that everybody will understand that if we want to push defence innovation and to be more able to face situations like the one we are facing today in Ukraine, we need capabilities. With 1.5 %of the GDP, it is not enough. We have to spend more. But we have to spend better. Better means to avoid duplications and to avoid gaps. We are working now according with the mandate of the [European] Council on studying deeper these defence gaps – where are the holes where we do not have the means and ways to react, what are we missing and what we have two or three times in a duplication that is not effective.
These €200 billion is more or less four times the military expenditure of Russia. All together we spend almost four times more than Russia. But certainly not with the same efficiency. €200 billion is the same military expenditure of China. All together we spend as much as China. But, certainly, it is not the same thing 27 different parts than one integrated military structure.
We do not want to create a European army. It is not about creating a European army. The European armies will remain, each Member States having its own military army. But we have to work together closer. We have to coordinate better our expenditure. We have to be able to react and one of the ways to react rapidly is the [EU] Rapid Deployment Capacity that has been agreed. I am very happy that finally this proposal has been agreed by the Member States, which will allow us to mobilise [up to] 5,000 troops, trained and equipped to react to crises. We will strengthen our Command-and-control capabilities, and we will conduct together live exercises together. It has never happened. European armies have been training together apart from the NATO framework.
We will build better tools to fight hybrid attacks, hybrid campaigns, cyber threats and foreign interference and manipulation of information, because the battlefields of tomorrow are also on the networks, on the cyber space, on the outer space, and on the high sea. It is not only about conquering land, but also about conquering minds of the people. And the minds of the people at the end determine the behaviour of their governments and the votes, for example, at the United Nations. There is big work to do, not with guns, but with words, with ideas, countering propaganda and disinformation, and presenting things the way they are.
This allow us to support our partners and to be a better partner. To support our partners, the way we are doing now with Ukraine, and to be a better partner inside NATO, with the United Nations and with the African Union.
We cannot act alone. We want to act in a more coordinated way among us and we want to act in a more integrated way with our partners. Acting in complementarity with NATO, which remains certainly the cornerstone of the territorial defence of Europe. But we, Europeans, with this document, stated our strong will to be a stronger security provider for our citizens, for the stability of the world and for the peace of the world, we will be more effective in facing crises – securing, acting, investing and with partnerships.
This is not a document to keep on the shelf. It is a guide to action with a concrete timeline: what we have to do and when we have to do [it]. This has to be updated frequently, it has been updated in the last weeks to stress the importance of the Ukrainian war, not because we didn’t discover before the Ukrainian war that Russia was one of the most important challenges that we were facing. We knew it and it was considered in the beginning in our threat analysis, but it was much more evident and we had to adapt the text to reflect the current situation. It will have to be under the control of the leaders of the European Union Council, to which I will present the Compass at the next meeting this week.
Finally, let me say one thing. This is only the beginning. We are going to work a lot on that. It is time to translate all these purposes into concrete results.
We need to study our defense gaps, we need to fill these defense gaps. We need to be effective and coordinated. We have to increase our resilience and, certainly, we have to ask for a better commitment from the European citizens as tax-payers to make the European Union a better security provider. Otherwise, we will be in danger. We are in danger. And to face these dangers we have to take full consciousness of that and act accordingly. I think that the Ukrainian war has been a kind of an awakening for our conscience. For example, we have been increasing our energy dependence on Russia for years and now we take full conscience of the weaponisation of dependencies. This is being used as a weapon against us.
We have to react when someone uses something as a weapon against us. We are not a military union. We are not a military alliance. But we want to play a role to provide European citizens with more security in a challenging and dangerous world. We are not living in the world we would like to live in. We live in the world the way it is. This world is dangerous. This world is challenging. Our neighborhood is in flames. From Gibraltar to Ukraine, we are surrounded by a circle of challenges and dangerous situations, and we have to face them.
This is why we have been working with all Member States to produce this approach fulfilling the mandate of the Treaty on the European Union that clearly states that the Union has to build progressively a Common Security and Defence Policy, putting the the High Representative in charge to conduct this work. It is my pleasure to present to you after two years of work what is, certainly, a big step forward to the building of this Common Security and Defence Policy for the European Union.
Before the jumbo meeting with the Defence Ministers, we had another important meeting with the Foreign Affairs Ministers, and as you can imagine the invasion of Ukraine by Russia was the main issue in agenda. The Ministers analyzed the situation and decided to continue taking decisions. Today was not the moment to take concrete decisions, but to have a look at where we are, what is going to happen, and what we can do in the next days.
The conclusions are very clear. All Member States remain extraordinarily united in supporting Ukraine, supporting Ukraine diplomatically and on the international stage. We will continue isolating Russia, to call it out for war crimes, and for blatant violations of international humanitarian law. We will continue supporting Ukraine economically, financially, with humanitarian assistance and supporting the Ukrainian armed forces. I am glad to announce that we have reached a political agreement for the additional €500 million under the European Peace Facility.
We considered that what is happening in Ukraine is a war crime. A massive war crime committed by the Russian armed forces against Ukrainian people and this cannot go unanswered.
That is why we welcome the Commission of Inquiry set up by the United Nations Human Rights Council. We welcome the investigation by the International Criminal Court’s Prosecutor, and we recall the order by this International Court of Justice for Russia to stop the invasion of Ukraine.
Restrictive measures continue constituting an important part of our approach and we are ready to take further [restrictive measures] together with our partners.
We will continue engaging with our international partners in order to continue putting pressure on Russia.
At the end of the meeting, we were joined by the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Moldova, Nicu Popescu. Moldova – as you know - is one of the countries more affected and most threatened by the Russian aggression. They are responding with an incredible generosity and solidarity with their Ukrainian neighbours. 30% of the children in Moldova today are children from Ukraine, refugees from Ukraine. Their education system is under huge strain, but they are integrating them fully, allowing them to continue learning. They need our support. We will provide all the support they need in order to face this challenging situation. The Ministers collectively committed to step up our support to Moldova. At that moment, there are 3.2 - maybe at this hour of the day, 3.3 - million refugees, and the flow continues.
I am convinced that Putin is using refugees as a tool, as an weapon. Sending as many as they can. They have not destroyed transport infrastructure; they just destroy the cities in order to terrify the civilians and make them escape. We are ready to help all of them.
This an asymmetric burden, because some Member States, on the border [with Ukraine], are having a stronger burden. They are facing this flow of refugees in the frontline, but all Member States will act in full solidarity to attend these people.