Can the EU increase defence spending without breaking the rules of the stability and growth pact?.
“There is a case for the UK Treasury saying that, for a fixed period, we’re going to carve the uplift in defence spending outside the fiscal rules,” he said.
However, a paper prepared by Poland, which holds the rotating EU presidency and sets the agenda for the bloc’s work, argues that the current interpretation of defence investment as only military equipment like tanks or planes is too narrow.
Ash, a long-time supporter of using Russian funds to support the Ukrainian war effort and reconstruction, said: “Europe should announce a huge $500bn to $1tn arms procurement programme, significantly funded from immobilised Russian assets, and commit to buy much of the weaponry from the US.
Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Commission, said this month at the Munich security conference: “I will propose to activate the safeguard clause for defence investments”, before adding: “During the pandemic, we activated the safeguard clause because we were in a crisis.
