Agreeing with Trump, EU foreign policy chief calls on bloc to invest more in military capabilities

By Nur Asena Erturk

The EU foreign policy chief on Wednesday said that she agrees with new US President Donald Trump that the bloc’s member states should invest more in military capabilities.

“We spend billions on our schools, welfare, healthcare, but if we do not invest more in defense, all of this is at risk. Europe's failure to invest in military capabilities also sends a dangerous signal to the aggressor. Weakness invites them in. President Trump is right to say that we do not spend enough. It is time to invest,” Kaja Kallas told the European Defense Agency Annual Conference in Brussels.

She said that Russian President Vladimir Putin was “spending well over a third of … his country's budget on the military.”

“In three months, they can produce more weapons and more ammunition than we can in 12,” Kallas added.

The EU official also stressed that the European national intelligence services were predicting that “Russia could test EU's readiness to defend itself in three to five years.”

In this context, she called for more preparedness, saying: "Europeans need to wake up.”

- Uniting against Russia

Kallas further said that Russia "might have few friends, but Europe has much more.”

“The US, the UK, NATO. First, the United States. They are our strongest ally and must remain so,” she insisted.

She said in this context, “the biggest concern” for the US was China.

“But the fact is that if we do not get Russia right, we will not get China right either,” Kallas added.

Trump has called on European countries to increase their defense spending.