{"id":466171,"date":"2026-09-28T15:33:33","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T13:33:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/09\/28\/lappello-di-kallas-leuropa-deve-riarmarsi-piu-rapidamente\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T16:37:37","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T14:37:37","slug":"kallass-appeal-europe-must-rearm-more-quickly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/09\/28\/kallass-appeal-europe-must-rearm-more-quickly\/","title":{"rendered":"Kallas\u2019s appeal: \u201cEurope must rearm more quickly\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 In the face of persistent Russian threats, Europe needs to boost its defence capabilities. So says Kaja Kallas<\/strong>, the European Union\u2019s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, who, on her arrival this morning (28 September) at the meeting with the defence ministers of the 27 Member States, warned: \u201cWe must remain vigilant because our intelligence suggests that Russia is planning further acts of sabotage and attacks.<\/strong>\u201d <\/p>\n

Moscow has set its sights on \u201cour democracies, with the aim of dividing our societies, intimidating them and dissuading them from continuing to help Ukraine.\u201d We \u201cmust take all this into account in order to be ready to face these threats\u201d and, \u201cwhen we have intelligence information, we must already be in a position to react even before these attacks take place,\u201d she emphasised. Following this introductory remark, her comments at the press conference following the Defence Council meeting sought to summarise the key points. Together with the ministers, \u201cwe discussed the first annual report on defence readiness, which provides a comprehensive overview of Europe\u2019s defence readiness. Without giving away its contents, I would just like to say that Europe must rearm more quickly and more effectively to achieve our 2030 target.<\/strong>” What Europe needs, in Kallas\u2019s view, is \u201ca decisive shift in the scale and pace of investment in defence, capability development, innovation, and industrial capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n

But at the ministers\u2019 meeting, the pressing and contentious issue was the Strait of Hormuz and the strengthening of the EU\u2019s ASPIDES military mission, which, by escorting ships (particularly merchant and commercial vessels) and protecting them from potential attacks at sea, helps to safeguard freedom of navigation and ensure maritime security in the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Gulf, as part of the EU\u2019s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). \u201cFreedom of navigation has once again been on the agenda: the Strait of Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, but also the Black Sea, are crucial maritime chokepoints<\/strong>, the disruption of which has consequences far beyond these regions,\u201d said the High Representative. In the Red Sea, \u201cthe Houthis\u2019 activities are increasingly jeopardising trade routes, and Operation ASPIDES is helping to keep this vital waterway open.<\/strong>\u201d However, the EU mission \u2013 which is European but relies on ships provided by member states at their discretion and subject to availability \u2013 has few resources given the scale of the task at hand, and this is where Kallas takes a dig at the member states. \u201cWe must increase its strength to make it more effective<\/strong>: if we entrust a mission with a task, we must also give it the means to carry it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a point that the former Estonian Prime Minister, now at the helm of the 12-star diplomatic corps, had made clear again this morning as she entered the meeting, because ASPIDES was originally envisaged as having a capacity of ten ships, but \u201cdoes not currently have\u201d that number. Furthermore, \u201cthe need is greater than ever\u201d because \u201cwe are receiving many requests for naval escorts<\/strong>, but we need naval vessels that are also capable of carrying out this task,<\/strong>\u201d she had clarified. At the end of the proceedings, Kallas noted that two countries \u201chave indicated that they might provide additional ships\u201d because \u201cthey are indeed discussing the matter and may reach a decision.\u201d <\/p>\n

But the appeal is much broader, and the Greek minister, Nikos Dendias<\/strong>, has acted as a mouthpiece following his bilateral meeting with the Italian minister, Guido Crosetto<\/strong>. As reported on X<\/a>, Dendias and Crosetto have \u201cagreed on the need for a contribution to the ASPIDES operation from <\/strong><\/span>part from all other Member States <\/span><\/strong>of the EU<\/strong>, in addition to Greece, Italy, and France.” <\/span><\/p>\n

The debate over the enhancement of ASPIDES has intensified in recent weeks as Houthi attacks<\/a> have escalated. In a letter dated 18 September, Crosetto asked Kallas to urge other EU Member States to bolster the mission by deploying new ships from other Member States. Italy has stated its willingness to deploy a second frigate to support the Bergamini, provided, however, that the costs of the operation are shared by the twenty-seven EU countries. The Italian request found an immediate ally in Kallas, who took pen and paper to write to all the capitals, asking them to increase<\/b><\/a> the European presence in the Red Sea \u201csubstantially.\u201d A call which, for the time being, seems to have fallen on only two willing ears.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The High Representative\u2019s address to the Defence Council. Meanwhile, the meeting revealed that two countries are open to the possibility of sending ships to the ASPIDES mission to ensure freedom of navigation in the Red Sea<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7874,"featured_media":466159,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[30809],"tags":[27336,26928,26001,34031,29851,35944,33264,33394],"class_list":["post-466171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-defence-security","tag-aspides-en","tag-council-en","tag-kallas","tag-navi-en","tag-riarmamento","tag-stretto-di-hormuz","tag-ue"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7874"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466171"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":466172,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466171\/revisions\/466172"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}