Europe Gears Up for Giant Defense Spending Increase

Europe is on track to launch the most extensive and expensive arms and security increases seen on the continent since World War II, with announcements about sector priorities and cash contribution shares likely to be announced at a security conference scheduled for March 6.

Reports were conflicting on the exact shape of the to-be-announced defense spending package and on Friday officials across the continent told media talks were still ongoing multilaterally among European states, and inside the governments of countries key to that build-up like Britain, France and Germany.

A Thursday article published by the newswire agency Bloomberg said “frantic” talks among European Union defense and security leadership were working to “unleash” hundreds of billions of euros of additional financing for defense.

News reports in Paris, London and Berlin said first details of the arms build-up program would be announced at an emergency EU leaders’ meeting on March 6. A formal continental defense strategy will be announced by European Commission Defense Commissioner Adrius Kubilius and EU Foreign Minister Kaja Kallas on Marth 19.

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Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has, per Ukrainian news reports, been invited to a special EU meeting on Russia’s war against Ukraine and European security on March 6.

The EU Commission, headed by President Ursula von der Leyen, reportedly will be the ultimate coordinator of a multi-nation defense funding plan, Bloomberg reported citing sources familiar with the planning.

The defense capacity growth initiative would ease fiscal rules and allow member states to exceed EU debt limits to raise at least €160 billion ($173 billion) for defense project spending, a Thursday report by that agency said.

Since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, European states have been slow to mobilize for collective defense projects, but, some European states have moved to joint arms manufacturing to support Ukraine’s military.

Most visible have been a Czech-German-Norwegian cluster coordinating artillery shell manufacturing, a Britain-led initiative developing seaborne drones, and German, Italian, French and Norwegian help to Ukraine’s air defense forces.

Investments in expanded development and production in the upcoming pan-Europe defense development plan will mainly be used to increase European manufacturing of air defense systems, long-range strike drones and missiles, and military-grade artificial intelligence, the Bloomberg report says.

In Germany, Europe’s largest economy and the continent’s manufacturing backbone for more than a century, talks kicked off on Friday between the newly-elected CDU party and its political rival, the SPD, for the formation of a ruling coalition, and joint support in the Reichstag of a €200 billion ($208 billion) defense spending initiative, the state-run Deutsche Welle news platform reported.

CDU party leader Friedrich Merz, widely predicted as Germany’s next Chancellor, in post-election comments, said German defense spending and German independence from American leverage on German national security would be top priorities for his government.

Current German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, a Greens party member, was one of the first European politicians to signal possible major EU spending on defense in the near future, according to a Feb. 18 report in Berliner Zeitung, she predicted Europe’s political leadership would announce a €700 billion ($732 billion) “financial package for security in Europe” in coming weeks. As of Friday, formal coalition talks between the CDU/SPD and the Greens had not been reported.

It was not clear from those reports what portion of increased German defense spending would go to Bundeswehr needs, and how much might go towards Ukraine’s military. Currently Germany has earmarked €20 billion for Ukraine assistance.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Tuesday announced his government plans to increase United Kingdom defense spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027, which would hike UK defense outlays by 13.4 billion pounds ($17 billion) a year. The government intends to push defense spending to 3% of GDP by 2035, he said.

In the 2023/24 financial year, the UK spent £53.9 billion ($68 billion) on defense. That figure would increase to  £56.9 billion ($71.7 billion) in 2024/25 and £59.8 billion ($75.3 billion) in 2025/26, official data published by parliament said.

France in January announced a seven-year program for dramatic increases in defense spending from a 2024 €47.2 billion ($50.1 billion) to €69 billion ($71.7 billion). In Thursday comments to the French news agency Franceinfo, France’s Defense Minister Sebastian Lecornu said that as France developed defense capacity, some funds would go to accumulating munitions stocks as a reserve, and if needed, for use by Ukraine.

“Security guarantees include several potential levels. The issue of weapons accumulation in Europe for Ukraine is a way of deterrence if war resumes,” Lecornu said.

According to research findings published by the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), Russian total military expenditures grew by 41.9% in real terms to $145.9 billion between 2023 and 2024. Over those twelve months, European defens spending growth increased 11.7%. German defense spending growth surged 23.2% to give Germany the world’s fourth largest defense budget, while Poland became the 15th largest defense spender globally, up from 20th place in 2022, the report said.

US officials led by President Donald J. Trump, in early February, kicked off a campaign criticizing Europe, they said, for failing to do enough to respond to Russian aggression in Ukraine. Overall, regional defense spending in Europe has increased 50% in nominal terms compared to 2014, when Russia kicked off its first invasion of Ukraine, the IISS report says.

US defense spending over the same time window increased about 27%, from $647 billion in 2014 to $876 billion in 2024, per announced Defense Department data.

Ukraine’s President Zelensky, in mid-February comments, said that by the metric of ground forces, his country is far and away the most powerful military counterweight to Russia, with Kyiv fielding more than 110 combat brigades, as compared with 81-82 combat brigades in all NATO members’ armies combined. Lecornu said: “The Ukrainian army is the best guarantee of security for Ukraine.”

The US contribution to NATO ground forces on the continent, by those measures, is a relatively unimpressive three combat brigades, of which one is permanently based in Germany, one is in Poland on rotating deployment, and one paratrooper brigade is in Italy. The American airborne infantry unit’s training and equipment are configured for rapid deployment to Africa or the Middle East, and not for conventional combat against a peer adversary like the Russian army in east Europe.