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A Brussels Reich? Van der Leyen’s ‘ReArm Europe’ Plan

March 6, 2025 UKR Editor GOVERNMENT, WAR and PEACE, WORLD 0

A Brussels Reich? Van der Leyen’s ‘ReArm Europe’ Plan

An exploration of the specifics of this ambitious proposal reveals its potential impact on the security dynamics within Europe

Intro by GLOBAL AFFAIRS

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has introduced the “ReArm Europe” initiative. The ReArm Initiative represents an extensive €800 billion strategy designed to enhance Europe’s defense capabilities and a strategic response to increasing global uncertainties and the recent halt of U.S. military assistance to Ukraine.

Emanuele Bonini reports for EUNEWS…

Von der Leyen outlines Rearm Europe Plan: ‘Ready to massively increase defense spending’

European Commission president sends EU leaders her five-point 800 billion euro plan for defense. Suspend the stability pact for sector spending, cohesion can be used for the military

“Europe is ready to massively boost its defense spending.”

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, flaunts confidence and determination. She warns about the “dangerous times” that characterize the present and, even more likely, the future. “I do not need to describe the grave nature of the threats that we face. Or the devastating consequences that we will have to endure if those threats would come to pass” because, she points out, “we are in an era of rearmament,” and at this stage, the EU intends to respond with a five-point European rearmament plan, the name of which — Rearm Europe — already suggests much.

Von der Leyen has already sent her plan to the member countries’ heads of state and government to ensure security and defense and revitalize the twelve-star heavy industry. It is a way to give leaders time to study it well and discuss it at the March 6 extraordinary European Council summit, from which the EU executive president expects full support. “The real question in front of us is whether Europe is prepared to act as decisively as the situation dictates. In the various meetings in the last few weeks – most recently two days ago in London – the answer from European capitals has been as resounding as it is clear.”

A five-point plan. Less budget rules and less cohesion

In essence, von der Leyen’s strategy confirms suspending the stability pact only for government spending in the security and defense sector. After all, the EU Commission president is well aware that “governments can invest if they have budgetary space,” and, therefore, spending must be allowed without triggering the excessive deficit procedure: “If Member States would increase their defense spending by 1.5 percent of GDP on average this could create fiscal space of close to 650 billion over a period of four years.

In addition to the 650 billion euros all to be released, there are 150 billion euros that the European Commission intends to make available through a “new instrument” of loans again on condition that the money goes to revitalize the sector. The idea behind this instrument, which could be similar to the Recovery Fund, is that the loans should be for joint purchases to upgrade a European network of anti-aircraft defense systems, anti-drone systems, cyber and cyber defense systems, as well as purchases of missiles and ammunition with which also to help Ukraine through artillery supplies.

Together, the two initiatives can mobilize 800 billion euros in the short term. Then there is the question of the budget. For von der Leyen, it needs to be used more and better for defense. In that sense, “we will provide additional possibilities and incentives to member states that decide if they want to use cohesion policy programs to increase defense spending.” Due to the need to rearm, money earmarked for the revitalization of the regions is being redirected, with all the related implications: fewer roads, less money to promote tourism and fewer resources for infrastructure to equip Europe and its states with more missiles.

European Investment Bank (EIB) for Defense

The last two areas of action under the ReArm Europe Plan aim to mobilize private capital by accelerating the Savings and Investment Union and making increasingly structured and structural use of the European Investment Bank (EIB). Von der Leyen urges states to consider the need to “broaden the scope” of the Luxembourg-based lending institution’s funding, as “the situation calls for considering all possible sources of financing.” The industry and businesses in the sector must have “the best possible access” to capital and financing and to encourage private investors to invest in the security of the EU. Leaders will start discussing this issue as early as Wednesday.

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SOURCE

Header featured image (edited) credit: WP open card. Emphasis added by (TLB)

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Published to UK Reloaded  from The Liberty Beacon

See Related Article Below

France’s National Rally says EU’s €800bn defence ‘rearm’ plan is a power grab

CARL DECONINCK

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has been accused of attempting to grab more power for Brussels after unveiling a “rearm Europe” plan based on an €800 billion fund for European defence and “immediate” aid to Ukraine.

National Rally leader Marine Le Pen said on March 3, in response to von der Leyen’s earlier statements following the Ukraine summit in London, that she was “arrogating powers to herself that are not hers”.

“I would remind Mrs von der Leyen that security and defence policy is not a competence of the Commission, but of the Member States, and that we are not fooled by the constant practice of arrogating new competences to ourselves at every crisis, against the Treaties,” Le Pen stated.

After the public spat between US President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky on February 28, on March 4 the European Union said it wanted to increase its support for Ukraine and rebuild its own depleted defence industry. That came on the same day Trump announced a “pause” in military aid to Ukraine.

With the ReArm Europe Plan, Brussels said it intended to “unleash the use of public funding in defence at national level”.

Le Pen responded: “The European Commission is completely overstepping its authority. As always, it is using a crisis to seize powers that are not its own, but those of the [member] states.

“It has already used this modus operandi to seize immigration policy thanks to the migrant crisis and health policy during the Covid crisis … This must be rejected”.

National Party President Jordan Bardella echoed Le Pen. “Ursula von der Leyen has neither the competence in terms of prerogatives nor even the mandate to grant herself defence,” he said.

Bardella insisted that, instead of European defence, France should work on its own national defence. He added that his party wanted to gradually increase the country’s defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP, compared with 2 per cent now, and to introduce European preference in defence procurement.

Le Pen also targeted French President Emmanuel Macron, who had indicated he was open to expanding French nuclear deterrence to the rest of Europe.

“For several years now – and again … the President of the Republic, despite being the guarantor of national independence and therefore of its most powerful tool, nuclear weapons, has been undermining our deterrence model through communication that is at best haphazard and at worst perjurious,” Le Pen said.

The Conservative commentator Mathieu Bock-Côté said on March 3 on the popular French TV show Face à ‘l Info that he was amazed at the “frivolousness” of European leaders.

He criticised what he saw as their eagerness to level accusations of alleged sympathy for Russian President Vladimir Putin and to draw comparisons to Neville Chamberlain in the Second Word War while seemingly ignoring the what he said was the looming threat of nuclear conflict.

Bock-Côté also claimed the current crisis situation was being used by European federalists to further centralise power within the EU.

“This narrative always resurfaces: We must think as Europeans — which effectively means no longer thinking as French or as citizens of any individual member state.

“If you do not align strategically, politically, culturally, and historically with the vision of European sovereignty—favoured by some but not by all — you are immediately branded a traitor or a Putin sympathiser,” Bock-Côté said.

He added that he believed those who wished to consider matters from a national perspective tend to be dismissed as reactionaries.

Bock-Côté also noted that Ukraine was not an EU or NATO member but that it seemed EU elites used the country to bypass what elections did not achieve, namely the creation of an imperial Europe that transcended national sovereignty.

The EC said it would activate the national escape clause of the stability and growth pact, allowing member states to take on more debt and increase their defence spending by up to €650 billion over four years without triggering the excessive deficit procedure.

Secondly, the body will propose a new instrument, providing €150 billion in loans to member states for defence investment.

That, it said, was to serve pan-European capability domains such as air and missile defence, artillery systems, missiles, ammunition drones and anti-drone systems but also other needs ranging from cyber systems to military mobility.

“This approach of joint procurement will also reduce costs, reduce fragmentation, increase interoperability and strengthen our defence industrial base,” the EC claimed.

Von der Leyen said she also wanted member states to use “cohesion policy programmes” to increase defence spending.

Thirdly, the EC said it wanted to use the EU budget for direct investments, in league with the European Investment Bank.

“We’re living in … dangerous of times,” von der Leyen said. “We are in an era of rearmament and Europe is ready to massively boost its defence spending.

“This is the moment for Europe.

“We will continue working closely with our partners in NATO. This is a moment for Europe and we are ready to step up,” she added.

This article (France’s National Rally says EU’s €800bn defence ‘rearm’ plan is a power grab) was created and published by Brussels Signal and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Carl Deconinck

 

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