“Don’t expect any competition between myself and NATO,” Kubilius said. “Where the EU can be of assistance … is … on the development of resources for [the] development of defense plans. We can raise money … that is what NATO cannot do.”
“With the resources we have now, in the 10 days we’d spend waiting for NATO to come and help us, we’d be occupied,” he added.
Referencing reports that NATO believes Europe needs an extra 1,500 tanks, he said those are the kind of blueprints that can guide EU investment. “We need to take NATO’s defense plans and [see] what it means in practical terms,” he said.
4. Get a piece of the space economy
If the EU wants a bite of a trillion-euro space economy, it needs to rethink how it manages its space programs, Kubilius said.
In addition to GPS-alternative Galileo and Earth observation network Copernicus, Kubilius should sign off on contracts for the IRIS² system in December, as a European alternative to Elon Musk’s Starlink military-grade satellite constellation.
