Defence Package: press remarks by High Representative/Vice-President Kaja Kallas at the college readout
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Thank you and good afternoon.
I start with Monday's attack on Polish railway track, which highlights the unprecedented risk to European transport infrastructure. Russia's attacks have become increasingly brazen. Our critical infrastructure needs more protection.
The fast movement of Europe's militaries is essential for European defence. We have to ensure that forces can be in the right place and at the right time.
Swift movement depends on many factors: can our roads, tunnels, bridges bear the weight? Are there enough designated routes for the military movements? Do we have enough flatbed rail carriages, and what paperwork do we still have to fill [out] when you want to cross [a] border for training, or in case of crisis.
It is quite simple: the faster we can move forces, the stronger our deterrence and defence. We need to be talking about days, not weeks, to move troops in Europe.
Some countries still require 45 days’ notice before other countries’ troops can pass through their for exercises, for example. Eleven years after Russia annexed Crimea, this is simply not good enough.
The European Defence Agency has already identified the solutions to harmonise border crossing procedures, including customs formalities, and rules on transporting dangerous good. But we need to do more. So today, as Henna already said, we are proposing a range of improvements.
First, we need to reduce administrative barriers. For that, we propose a new EU-wide emergency mechanism that allows member states to relax the rules when armed forces need to be moved rapidly across the borders. We also propose that the national military transport coordinators are assigned in each Member State.
Second funding. The Commission’s proposal for the next multi-annual budget foresees €17 billion investment for dual-use transport infrastructure. This goes together with the 1.5% of GDP spending that NATO Allies pledged for security-related investments.
Investing in infrastructure is crucial. If a bridge cannot carry a 60-ton tank, we have a problem. If a runway is too short for a cargo plane, we cannot resupply our troops. EU military mobility does not duplicate NATO's efforts, on the contrary, it underpins NATO's defence plans.
As we flagged in the white paper, we also want to extend the military mobility corridors into Ukraine. This would be a security guarantee, meaning we could deliver faster support if needed.
Military mobility is a critical insurance policy for European security. You hope [that] you never have to use it [to] full capacity. But having it ready ensures more credible deterrence and defence.
And on that note, I will pass now the floor to Commissioner Kubilius, please.
Link to the video: https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/media/video/I-280962
Q&A
Q. I will ask in Greek. I believe that it's clear that the Commission within this project, that certainly is very ambitious, will have a coordinating role. I would like to make it clear, could you please clarify what is it that member states should do? What is the Commission's intention? What does the Commission intend to do to assist Member States? And what Member States will be included in the 1.5%? If I am not mistaken, the High Representative just referred to the 1.5% for infrastructure within NATO.
On that 1.5% of GDP, I said that this €17 billion goes together with the 1.5% of GDP spending that NATO allies have pledged for security-related investments, so not in defence in particular, but security related interventions.
Q. I will start with the HR/VP, if I may. You spoke about the sabotage attack in Poland. First of all, do you agree with the Polish Foreign Minister that the response should go further than merely diplomatic? Whatever that means will be up to him and Poland. And also, what is the Commission doing now, in the next few hours, in the next few days, to bolster European defence when it comes to critical infrastructure? And also, a question for Commissioner Kubilius, if I may. You said that Russia could attack a European NATO country by 2030. Are you certain that what you are announcing will be absolutely fully implemented by that point? There could be a legislative delay. In the last few days, I was speaking to French generals who had their troops delayed for days and days and days traveling to Romania for a NATO exercise. How soon will they be able to move their troops quickly?
It is clear that these kind of attacks are an extreme danger also for our critical infrastructure, and of course it is up to Poland to attribute and make steps like this. But what I agree is that we have to have a strong response, because what Russia is trying to do is to do two things. On the one hand, to test us, to test how far they can go. Every time they go further. And then next, they also try to sow fear within our societies. So, now our response is also dependent on those two factors. If they want to sow fear inside our societies, then if our response is too strong, then the fear increases, which is what Russia wants. We really have to have a balanced approach. I can bring you a good example. When the critical infrastructure undersea was attacked, then we had the Baltic Sentry, we had different responses and since then we have not had any attacks on the undersea cables anymore. So, we have to come up with a similar response in order to protect our critical infrastructure, to send a message of unity to Russia, that they cannot get away with these attacks, but at the same time give assurances to our societies that there is nothing to be afraid of.
I wanted to add on the Russian possible attacks. I think it very much depends on us because weakness invites them to make their move. If we are making the steps on military mobility, on the defence readiness, increasing our defence expenditure, everything, also our interoperability and cooperation between Member States and defence industry that we talked about today, then Russia will not attack because we are not weak. So, I would not say that anything is forgiven. It is dependent on us, and we are making sure that we are ready so that it acts as a deterrence and they will not attack us.
Q. Just to broaden it out a little bit, because I know it is the type of issue that has been raised sometimes in the European Parliament – the necessity for, generally speaking, defence spending. I think the President mentioned a figure for the next five years, maybe up to €800 billion. Obviously, the terrible situation in Ukraine, I think we have sent €177 billion since 2022. Then, of course, most of the EU countries are NATO, and that is more billions. So, the question is if we have to be careful to balance the billions on military and then look at the 21% of the EU population who is at risk of poverty or social exclusion. How do we balance that, or how do we justify this huge amount of money that we are spending in terms of military?
If I can add to that, of course every government needs to spend on education, social affairs, everything the needs are enormous. The trouble is that, if you have infrastructure attacked, if you have schools and hospitals attacked like they are right now in Ukraine, all of this does not matter if you are not able to defend what you have. The trouble with defence spending is that you need to invest in defence when you do not need it, so it is very hard to explain to the people when we actually need it. But when you need it, when you are in this moment, then it is way too late to do anything about this, and then everything that we were talking about before – education, social, hospitals, everything – is under danger. So, that is why, of course, I understand totally that it takes a lot of effort from the leaders who are not feeling this threat so directly to explain this to the people. We need to do this. We are, in the European Union, collectively answering to different threats, whether they come from the south, from the east, whether they are financial threats that we have had or crises that we have had before, or the health crisis that we had. We tackle all of those collectively together, and that is why we have to make these investments now.
Link to the video: https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/media/video/I-280965