site.btaEU Must Boost Its Defence Industry Capacity to Be Ready for Possible Long-Term War Scenario, Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius Says

The EU countries must increase the capacity of their defence industry in order to be ready for a possible scenario in which they are involved into a long-term war. This is what European Commissioner for Defence and Space Andrius Kubilius said in an interview with BTA.

A former prime minister of Lithuania, Kubilius became the first ever European commissioner in charge of defence on December 1. This post in the new European Commission, under the leadership of its President Ursula von der Leyen, was created against the backdrop of Russia's war in Ukraine and the war between Israel and several armed groups in the Middle East. Tensions in the region, which is in Europe's backyard, have increased further since rebel groups ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The first thing Kubilius should do within the first 100 days in his new job is to prepare what is called White Paper on European defence and the risks it faces. He will do this together with a representative of another Baltic state with an important post in the European Commission - Estonia's Kaja Kallas, who is the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

"During long-term war, it's very important not only to have some weapons in the stocks before the war, but it's also very important to develop industry capabilities to maintain, to repair those weapons and to produce new weapons. And we need to have such a defence industry capabilities not far away from the war zone, in order to avoid any kind of challenges related to the security of supply", he said.

"We see that the challenges and drawbacks to security are coming not only from Russia but from the whole axis of authoritarian countries - Russia, Iran and North Korea. China somewhere behind them. And in order to defend ourselves against such kind of dangers and threats coming from such kind of axis, we need to unite among democracies worldwide. So that is why our relations with United States with other democracies will be even more important looking into the future", Kubilius added.

The Comissioner said he was expecting a constructive dialogue with Donald Trump's future government in the US. "I think that on both sides of the Atlantic we shall have similar understanding how important is NATO and that we shall need on our side to understand that we need to spend more on our defence, but not because this is what Trump is demanding, but simply because of we have Putin on the European continent and and we have also threats which are coming from the aggressive policy of Putin, and that is why we need to invest more into our defence", Kubilius added.

Trump said in a recent interview on NBC that the US would leave NATO if the allies did not "pay their bills". During his previous term in office (2017-2021), he repeatedly criticized Alliance member states for not spending at least 2% of their gross domestic product on defence.

Addressing the topic of space, Kubilius said that according to some experts, in the coming decades the space industry is likely to play the role that the Internet played 10 or 20 years ago. "That is what we need to have in mind and what we need to look into in order for us not to stay outside of such kind of revolutionary developments. It will demand from us clear space industrial strategy," he told BTA.