“My argument is very simple — if defense is the ultimate European public good, we need European structures and European funding to develop our defense capabilities,” Mitsotakis said in an interview with POLITICO.
“There is an elephant in the room. We don’t openly talk about it, but could we envision a scenario where we have a joint European borrowing facility that is targeted to support European defense projects?” he added.
“I would most certainly support that, provided there are projects that clearly qualify as European public good … let’s use European money to do things that we may not be able to do at the national level,” Mitsotakis said.
While the European Commission has brought forward a series of plans to loosen fiscal rules and allow capitals to borrow more to fund a large-scale rearmament program, countries have remained deadlocked on the idea of sharing the debt to unlock additional funds. A series of cross-border projects have been identified, including anti-drone measures, but it remains largely up to national governments to make the investments.
“I think the challenge is, can we have additional funding and can this additional funding be attached to conditionalities that push us in the direction of a stronger preparation,” Mitsotakis said, “which would be joint procurement, be the development of new technologies, especially drones and AI, and I think the Commission and European institutions have a clear role to play.”
According to a draft joint statement prepared by ambassadors from all 27 EU countries ahead of Thursday’s summit, the bloc will agree to “increasingly gear defense investment towards joint development, production, and procurement.”