Brussels (TDI): The European Union’s (EU) member countries need to increase defence spending to keep pace with the threats facing the continent, its foreign policy chief has warned.
Kaja Kallas, who served as prime minister of Estonia until July 2024, stated “every euro spent on school, healthcare and welfare was vulnerable” if the EU didn’t maintain strong defences, BBC reported.
She added that US President Donald Trump was right to criticise Europe’s spending, which sits at an average of 1.9 percent.
She also pointed to Russia spending 9 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defence, adding Europe’s expenditure was “clearly not enough” in light of the war in Ukraine.
Speaking in BBC World Service’s Weekend programme, she said, “To prevent the war, we need to spend more, that is clear.”
Kallas said member countries also needed to work together to “pressure” Russia economically, and hinted at a new sanctions package in coming month to mark three years of the war in Ukraine.
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The EU requires to be “creative” in terms of limiting Moscow’s “ability to wage this war”, she said, adding that pressuring Russian President Vladimir Putin “is the way to end this conflict because Putin is the one who started it”.
Kallas Pushed for Increased Defence Spending as PM
Before taking up the EU post last December, Kallas repeatedly urged higher levels of defence spending while she was serving as Estonia’s first female prime minister.
In February 2024, Kallas said she wanted Nato states to increase defence spending to 3% of their GDP.
Alliance members committed to spending at least 2 percent of GDP on defence after Russian troops seized Ukraine’s southern peninsula of Crimea and Moscow-backed proxies occupied large areas of eastern Ukraine in 2014.
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As Estonian prime minister, Kallas vowed more than 1 percent of the country’s GDP to Kyiv to assist bolster Ukraine’s war effort.
According to Nato estimates for 2024, Estonia’s defence budget as a proportion of GDP was the second highest in the military alliance.
In December 2024, Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte said member countries would have to “shift to a wartime mindset” and spend “considerably more than 2 percent” on defence.
