Europe needs to be better prepared to defend itself, the former Swedish prime minister warned.
Europa should prepare to assume a significant financial burden for the war in ukraine and prepare for the tension with the United States for the relations with China and Donald Trump wins the race for the White House in November, Carl Bildt told ‘Euronews’.
Formed, former prime ministerand former Swedish foreign minister who currently co-chairs the think tank European Council on Foreign Relations, spoke with ‘Euronews’ on the sidelines of the Forum Alpbach, the political congress based in the Austrian region of Tyrol.
Trump “es extremely unpredictablebut clearly there will be tensionsconsiderable on the other side of the Atlantic” if he wins the presidential election, Bildt said. “We (in Europe) have our opinions on territorial integrity that are important from our point of view, and he doesn’t really care, so there will be tension“he added.
Increased financial burden on Ukraine and increased tensions with China
“We Europeans, we will have to increase our financial support to Ukraine“said Bildt, which estimated that the cost would amount to between 0.2% and 0.3% of EU GDP. Although it was optimistic: “We can do it if the political will is there“.
Bildt also pointed out the relationship between the EU and China like a possible cause of tension transatlantic if Trump wins. “Will increase tariffs of all kinds (about China) and that will have a very negative effect on world trade,” Bildt said.
“Will Europe follow the United States and massively raise tariffs on China? I don’t think we will, and I don’t think we should, because that It would also have a negative effect on our economy. and could further increase tensions in the Atlantic.”
Development of defensive capabilities
Bildt said that the EU needs develop a greater independent defense capacity. “We are now more dependent on the Americans than we have been for a long time,” he said, highlighting nuclear deterrence in particular.
“Putin has its nuclear capabilities to exert political pressure and for other reasons, doing exercises and talking about it,” he said, warning that Europe can currently only counter that threat with American capabilities.
They are also needed greater intelligence capabilitiescommand and control, as well as larger ground forceshe said, “because at the end of the day war is decided by what happens on the ground. “We see this happening in Poland and Germany, but clearly much more needs to be done.”
Ursula von der Leyenthe president of the European Commission recently elected for a second term, has promised strengthen defense policy during his second term – but that will not be easy, warns Bildt.
“It will be aquite difficult task to define the mandateand the scope of the Defense Commissionerin competition with the work that is done within NATO and the priorities given to the decisions of national governments.
The role of United Kingdom it is also problematiche added, since it is “one of the most important (military) intervention powers that we have in Europe, if not the most important, and it is outside the EU“.
Given that much of the European defense industry is highly integrated with that of the UK, “when it comes to forging a European and EU identity in defense policy, we need to resolve the relationship with the UK“Bildt said.
