What’s in Europe’s historic €800bn rearmament plan – as leaders turn on Trump ...Middle East

BRUSSELS – The European Union is poised to push forward with a historic rearmament that protects Ukraine and ensures it can defend itself without the help of the United States.

Leaders used an emergency EU summit in Brussels gave their broad backing to the €800bn ReArm Europe plan outlined by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday to beef up defences in the face of Russia’s aggression and to fill the gaps from an increasingly disengaged US. 

“In extraordinary times we need special measures,” von der Leyen said, standing alongside Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who joined the summit. “Europe faces a clear and present danger, and therefore Europe has to be able to protect itself, to defend itself.”

Zelensky thanked European leaders for their “strong support” in recent weeks as US President Donald Trump’s administration has lambasted him. “During all this period, and last week, you stayed with us,” he said. “We are not alone, and these are not just words, we feel it.”

The summit comes after an astonishing turn of events in which Trump has pulled support for Ukraine and undermined Nato, shattering the transatlantic security establishment.

The response in Europe has been to sacrifice its own sacred cows on defence spending, tearing up rules that prevented countries from boosting their militaries while voicing previously unthinkable warnings about the US being an unreliable ally.

“We’re at a turning point today, where everything could change – and I believe it will – when it comes to Europe’s commitment to armament,” said Polish President Donald Tusk. “The new approach of the American administration to Europe and the arms race started by Russia pose completely new challenges to us.”

He was echoed by European Parliament President Roberta Metsola who said, “It’s about damn time” this summit takes place, adding that Europe needs to show it’s “capable of standing up on its own two feet” and “put, finally, our money where our mouth is.”

Notoriously slow in decision-making, the EU is moving at breakneck speed to open its purse strings. “We need to rearm Europe and do not have lot of time,” Denmark Prime Minister Frederiksen said. “The most important thing now is to rearm Europe.”

The Commission’s ReArm Europe plan is a package of measures that includes loan schemes, looser EU fiscal rules to allow for more defence spending, and the redirection of regional grants into defence investments.

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The European defence agenda was further invigorated this week by the coalition deal by Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz, previously a fiscal hawk, to rip up the country’s borrowing limits to fund some €400 billion in defence spending.

While Merz was not at the EU summit – outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz is still representing Germany – his initiative is expected to spur other countries to splurge on defence.

With Trump announcing that the US would roll back legal protections for some 240,000 Ukrainian refugees – leaving them vulnerable to expulsion, EU countries are expected to offer to take in any deportees.

While the formal summit agenda did not include discussions on specific military support for Ukraine, leaders were expected to talk in the sidelines about the proposed European Sky Shield scheme – backed by Britain – of 120 fighter jets to protect the country from Russian attacks.

They are also expected to renew their debates about whether to accept French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to offer his country’s nuclear deterrent to protect them from Russian threats – a plan that Poland’s Tusk welcomed, saying “We must seriously consider this proposal,” and Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nausėda praised as a “very interesting idea.”

Nausėda also urged the EU to move faster in filling the funding gap for Ukraine left by the US. “Ukraine is buying time for us with their blood,” he said, adding that the EU should commit to letting Ukraine join the bloc by 2030.

The summit’s draft conclusions do not directly reference the Trump administration’s pullback from Europe but instead say, “Europe must become more sovereign, more responsible for its own defence and better equipped to act and deal autonomously with immediate and future challenges and threats.”

It also says there can be no peace or ceasefire negotiations on Ukraine without Ukraine and that any agreement must be accompanied by “robust and credible security guarantees for Ukraine.”

There were objections to the draft from Russia’s closest EU allies Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Slovak Prime Minister Prime Minister, with Orbán backing the boost to the bloc’s defence industry but opposing further support for Ukraine, while Fico said he did not even want to go to what he called a “EU combat meeting.”

However, Fico eventually accepted to the language and officials said that Orbán’s quibbles would be resolved or swept aside by the majority, with Luxembourg Prime Minister Luc Frieden indicating that he should not attempt to block the rest of the EU.

“We are living in historic times and we should be more united than ever — and if you do not share this view, the others should go ahead,” he said.

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