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 community’s security. What is the aim of your position and mandate? aid our readers realize why the EU has elevated common defence to specified a advanced level, and what priorities you are focusing on?
ANDRIUS KUBILIUS: Well as you rightly mentioned, the creation of my portfolio is in any way evidence that the European Union is placing safety 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 2 key priorities. First is safety and defence, and second is competitiveness. If you ask why safety and defence is specified a priority, I think that there is no request for a very long explanation – it is definitely due to the threats coming from Russia. And that is why it is not only a precedence for the Commission, but besides a precedence for the Polish presidency, which has a very good symbolic title for the presidency – “Security, Europe!”
Of course, this is something fresh for the EU and for the Commission. Before now defence and safety were mainly the prerogative of associate 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 active in those issues because, according to the treaties, they are very much related to the defence manufacture and the capabilities of that manufacture to produce what is needed for the associate states. And this is where the EU is coming from, not as a competitor to NATO or to associate states in their defence planning, but as a supplier of added value to assist associate states to make their industries. The aim is to let associate states to implement their capability targets in a much more fast way. Unlike NATO, the European Commission has possibilities according to treaties to implement industrial policy. It has possibilities to rise additional funds for defence, and that is what we are doing now.
ADAM REICHARDT: You’ve late been tasked with preparing a peculiar white paper for European defence, which is being debated rather a bit around Europe right now. Could you summarize the most crucial conclusions that are coming from this paper for the EU associate states?
The conclusions are rather 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. And any intelligence indicates Russia plans to start a fresh aggression against European NATO members, especially in the neighbourhood of Russia, before 2030. That means that until then, we request to ramp up our production and increase our defence capabilities to specified levels that we would be ready to defend ourselves and deter any anticipation of Russian aggression. We request to show Vladimir Putin that he will not be able to accomplish anything if he decides to make another stupid, criminal act of aggression. What we request to do, as outlined in the white paper, is focus on respective precedence areas. First of all, of course, is the question of how we can increase our support to Ukraine, due to the fact that 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 request to increase our own capabilities, especially in respective areas. The EU needs to very rapidly ramp up its production and get weapons which are ready for both the war of present and the wars of tomorrow. This means not only how do we scale up production of what we are producing now – ammunition, missiles, dense weapon systems like tanks or artillery – but also, based on Ukraine’s experience, how fresh technologies are becoming a part of warfare, like drones, anti-drone systems, electronic systems and so on.
In addition, we request to address the systemic problems in our defence industry. Again, that is where we see very clearly that the EU can be of large assistance to associate states to make a real single marketplace for defence and avoid further fragmentation of the industry. This includes the alleged “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 truly of strategical importance. What is proposed in the ReArm Europe financial programme could let associate states to spend an additional 800 billion euros during the next 4 years on defence. And that will make rather a large impact.
JS: The large question erstwhile we are speaking about European defence is how the EU can coordinate with NATO and balance defence autonomy while supporting NATO structures. Can you talk more about how the EU strategy fits within the framework of NATO?
We are not competing with NATO and that was 1 of the basic principles which I said from the very beginning. We have truly very good cooperation with NATO office and with General Secretary Mark Rutte. NATO has a work to make the alleged military plans and besides to set military capability targets. In another words, what associate states request to have in terms of military force, how many tanks, artillery systems, etc. This process is taking place inside of NATO. NATO office are negotiating with associate states on precise numbers and what they can promise to deliver. We hope that this process will be successfully concluded by the NATO Summit in June in The Hague. 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 manufacture output plan with a very concrete image of the landscape, what European industries request to produce, what they inactive 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 besides gain a bit from your experience and get any reflections from you, since you have served in the Baltic states, in peculiar as a erstwhile prime minister of Lithuania. How would you say that your knowing of Baltic safety has helped form 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 possibly realize the threats of an aggressive Russia better than another countries, which may have a larger distance from Russia. That’s why we talk in clearer language. We perceive those informing signals from intelligence services as real signals which we request to take into account. And erstwhile we have specified a informing from intelligence services the question is then very simple. Are we reacting to those informing signals in a serious way? Or do we anticipate nothing will happen and we can stay relaxed.
From the very beginning I was repeating this old Latin expression that if you want peace, you request to be ready for war. We proceed that. Of course, there are possibly inactive different approaches in different associate states, but as we can see from fresh decisions in the European Council, specified as erstwhile 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 rather united in their knowing of the threats which possibly we, in the Baltics, were the first to start to talk up about. In addition, of course, we request to see that global developments besides are pushing Europeans to take more work for our own defence. We were looking into transatlantic developments with quite a few attention. And we realize that in the longer term, again, not possibly next day or the day after tomorrow, but possibly 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 decision 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 request to be ready for specified a development.
JS: Before we go to the US, 1 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 request to realize that from the Russian side this is part of a fresh form of modern warfare. For them there is no large difference in how to proceed, starting with influence in elections, influence on social networks, acts of sabotage, provocations and possibly even real military aggression. So, this fresh generation warfare, as any experts are calling it, demands from us fresh generation defence strategies. While we have a better knowing of what we request to do with our conventional defence capabilities, it is little 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 strategical 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 due to the fact that it’s fundamentally defending Europe as well. And with US support to Ukraine coming to an end at any point – possibly in the coming weeks or months – how can Europe invest in its own safety and aid 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 utilizing all the possibilities which we as the European Commission are creating, not only with loans but besides with the anticipation 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 3 years of the war, EU associate 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 associate states, but besides 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 3 years of the war from the European Union and 60 billion from the American side.
If we recalculate how much on average we spend during 1 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 inactive supply 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 besides what is our long-term strategy towards Russia. I hope that we will be much clearer in our strategical approach, which would let us besides to support Ukraine in a more effective way.
JS: Do you think Europe’s defence manufacture will be able to produce at that velocity and volume what we truly request in order to meet the threats we presently face?
We gotta admit the challenge. The issue is how to ramp up our production and how we can take quite a few lessons from Ukraine. It would be good for us to learn lessons from Ukraine before we face a possible wider war, as Ukraine learned quite a few lessons about how to ramp up defence production. In 2022, the Ukrainian defence manufacture was able to produce weapons with a full amount of 1 billion euros per year. Last year, they were able to produce weapons with a full value of 35 billion euros. They’ve besides developed their manufacture to produce very modern weapons, specified as drones and anti-drone technologies, which we request to make and learn how to usage them.
I mentioned priorities and what we’re doing now with the improvement of our defence capabilities, with support to industry, financial support and so on. We are besides planning crucial steps forward with alleged simplification regarding the alleged “Defence Omnibus”. In another 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 besides Belarus, is continuing to grow? Is deterrence adequate right now to halt Russia from utilizing force to test NATO?
Well, as Mark Rutte is saying, at the moment, yes, we have capabilities to halt Russia. But if we do not look into the future, how things can make during the next 4 or 5 years, then we will make a large mistake. Again, as Rutte says, in 3 months’ time, Russia will be able to produce more weapons than all NATO associate states – the US, UK and the Europeans – are able to produce during 1 year. So it means that the Russians are stockpiling weapons to prepare themselves for whatever, possibly the possibilities of the next aggression. We realize from those public warnings from the German or Danish intelligence services that Russia is considering their plans to test Article 5. We request to be very clear that in specified case, if Russia will proceed its war economy and capabilities to produce mass amounts of weapons, and we do not increase our capabilities, then definitely in 3 or 4 years we will face large problems. We cannot anticipate 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 request to decision now with our implementation as rapidly as possible.
This interview is featured in Issue 4/2025 of fresh east Europe.
Andrius Kubilius is simply a Lithuanian politician who is presently serving as the European Commissioner for Defence manufacture and Space. He previously served as a associate of the European Parliament and earlier as prime minister of Lithuania from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012.
Joanna Maria Stolarek is the manager of the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s Warsaw office and a writer specializing in abroad affairs with a peculiar focus on Polish-German relations.
Adam Reichardt is the editor in chief of New east Europe and a co-host of the Talk east Europe podcast.
