site.btaMEP Nikola Minchev: Honest Conversation with Voters Requires Us to Say Clearly that We Need to Invest More in Defence

"An honest conversation with voters requires politicians to clearly state that in the coming years we need to invest more seriously in defence,” said MEP Nikola Minchev of Renew Europe said in an interview with BTA.

“The years in which we could afford defence to be underfunded and therefore this money to be redirected to completely different sectors are behind us. Honest conversation requires us to say that this has to be done, it is not an easy step, but it is inevitable and it cannot help but reduce money for some other sectors,” Minchev said.

In March, the European Commission presented a White Paper on European Defence - Readiness 2030 and the ReArm Europe Plan/Readiness 2030, which allows for the spending of over EUR 800 billion.

The goal of the plan is by 2030 Europe's defence capability to be at the required level and to have a deterrent effect, Minchev noted. There are several aspects of the plan. One of the instruments allows loans of up to EUR 150 billion with guarantees provided by the European Commission, which will give better financial conditions to member states. Under this instrument, at least two countries will be needed to cooperate and make a joint defence order, Minchev explained. Europe lacks a functioning, single defence market, which hinders good connectivity between the defence capabilities of individual member states, as well as their interoperability. This is a major problem and can be overcome through common procurement, the MEP said.

Relaxing member states' deficit requirements would allow countries to add up to 1.5% more of their GDP to defence spending, he said.

Bulgaria is among the countries that support the view that unspent money under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan can be used for defence. Regarding EU cohesion funds, the Bulgarian government has already made it clear that it does not want such a redistribution because our country relies on them, Minchev said.

Europe is in a new situation even compared with 2024. This is due to changed demands and commitment from the US towards Europe's collective security. Because Europe has always relied on the American umbrella and has relied for its protection on the leading role of the US as a major country in NATO, because of this for many years Europe has not invested enough in its defence, the MEP said and added that for many years the US has given indications that it expects Europe to allocate more financial resources for defence.

Even before US President Donald Trump's first term, there were hints that European countries were expected to take seriously the commitment to allocate 2% of their GDP to defence. Under Donald Trump's second term, Europe now has no choice but to take its own defence into its own hands. This is happening at an extraordinary speed and as a result we see the ReArm Europe 2030 plan, Nikola Minchev added.

On March 4, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen presented a plan for the EU's rearmament. According to the proposal, EU countries will be exempted from budgetary spending requirements when investing in defence. Countries would be free to reallocate EU cohesion funds to defence purposes. Von der Leyen has proposed that EUR 150 billion should be made available through loans for the supply of munition, air defence systems, missiles and drones.