Christodoulides ‘Absolutely Satisfied’ with EU Council Defence Commitments

At Monday’s European Council retreat in Brussels, the European Union’s 27 heads of government had agreed to do more to bolster their defence capabilities, declaring their openness to boosting spending.

Christodoulides said these decisions will “contribute decisively to achieving strategic autonomy and enhancing the EU’s geostrategic role in today’s unstable international environment.

He added that Cyprus “has demonstrated [its will] to assume its appropriate role and to contribute substantially to the achievement of common European goals” in the eastern Mediterranean.

On this matter, he made reference to planned upgrades to the Andreas Papandreou airbase in Paphos and the Evangelos Florakis naval base in Mari, saying they will be carried out “within this framework”.

European Council President Antonio Costa was on Monday keen to encourage the bloc to go further on its defence spending.

“A lot has been done already, but we need to do more. We need to do it better, stronger, faster – and we need to do it together,” he said.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was in agreement, saying Europe “needs, basically, a surge in defence”, before saying the EU’s “defence industrial base must be strengthened”.

To this end, she said she plans to give the EU’s member states more flexibility to spend more of their budgets on defence.

“In extraordinary times, it must be possible to take extraordinary measures,” she added.

Heads of government of other EU member states expressed their support for further defence spending, with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis calling after the meeting for the commission to “provide an incentive” for countries to spend more than two per cent of their gross domestic product on armaments.

“It is also extremely necessary to form a common European fund for defence projects which are essentially European priorities. In particular, I propose the creation of a fund of €100 billion … which could finance joint European actions such as, for example, a European anti-missile shield,” he said.

Source: Reuters