Official: EU targets €7 trillion defence surge to outpace Russia

EU countries should spend €7 trillion on weapons production over the next 10 years in order to outpace Russia in armaments and military power, EU Commissioner for Defence Andrius Kubilius said at a military conference in Brussels.

According to him, the European Union "learned how to raise additional funds. We still need to learn how to spend them in an effective way in order to outproduce, out innovate, outgun Russia..”

“Member States will spend around 7 trillion euro during next 10 years, according to their pledges given to NATO” he continued.

Kubilius urged Europeans to "pay the price for peace, to avoid the cost of war."

He also called for the full integration of Ukraine into the emerging European defence union and the EU defence market, and for the unification of European and Ukrainian defence industries into a single military-industrial complex.

The EU Commissioner called on European armed forces and industry to move away from producing “high-tech weapons” that are difficult to manufacture in large quantities. Instead, he suggested focusing on producing “adequate weapons in vast quantities”, citing drones used in the conflict in Ukraine as an example.