{"id":466684,"date":"2026-10-02T13:21:31","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T11:21:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/10\/02\/linutile-spesa-per-la-difesa-dei-paesi-europei\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T13:56:34","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T11:56:34","slug":"the-pointless-defence-spending-of-european-countries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/10\/02\/the-pointless-defence-spending-of-european-countries\/","title":{"rendered":"The pointless defence spending of European countries"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am convinced that Europe\u2019s defence capabilities need to be improved. By this I mean that a Union such as this \u2013 which is almost entirely a member of NATO and has its own defence agreements \u2013 must have a central coordinating body capable of efficiently mobilising the armed forces of individual countries. And this concerns us all, from the Portuguese \u2013 who seem to be living peacefully over there, with the sea in front of them and friendly Spain behind \u2013 to the Poles, who share a border with belligerent Russia.<\/p>\n

At present, if we were to send a tank to Poland \u2013 say, from Italy \u2013 the only way, if I understand correctly, would be to load it onto a truck\u00a0or a ship and have it transported to Gda\u0144sk. It doesn\u2019t seem very efficient; it might work, but there must be a better way.<\/p>\n

So, given the aggressive neighbour we have and the withdrawal of our long-standing ally across the Atlantic, it has been said (for years, many years) that the system needs improving. The defence system needs to be improved and coordinated; industrial production needs to be improved; a semblance of a chain of command capable of immediately taking the reins in an emergency needs to be introduced; transport needs to be coordinated, and so on. All good, all correct.<\/p>\n

But nobody is doing that. The only thing happening is a huge increase in orders that governments place with various companies, each acting on its own, without any coordination or efficiency measures. And in military life \u2013 the first thing you learn when you enter this field \u2013 it\u2019s all about efficiency: 1,000 rifles are worth less than 10 bows if they are handed to 1,000 uncoordinated riflemen, all of whom will soon be shot down by ten archers who know exactly what they are doing.<\/p>\n

This really makes me furious. Because, in truth, I detest weapons (even though I did my military service \u2013 and did it well, with two promotions in 10 months, even though I come from a family \u2013 on my mother\u2019s side \u2013 of military personnel) and it was hard for me to admit that, in any case, we cannot be dreamy pacifists while someone is bombing our neighbours and is already attacking our IT systems (because defence isn\u2019t just about shooting). But I know we also need to educate our young people, care for our sick, make our rivers safe, pay decent pensions, keep our streets clean, build housing\u2026 and if, instead, we throw our money away on ordering tanks that won\u2019t even be able to leave the province where they\u2019re parked, then I get really angry!<\/p>\n

The report published by the European Defence Agency (EDA) on 30 September is discouraging: 68 per cent of investment remains at the national level. In other words, Italy, Germany and Portugal (on average) order weapons to keep at home, without even consulting their neighbours, and without making any effort to form a united front. In practice, if Russia were to attack us, we would head to wherever the conflict was taking place to fight with 27 different armies, without even having automatic permission to pass through other friendly countries while armed. And in fact, we would never even get there.<\/p>\n

Yet, in 2025, defence spending by EU Member States reached 418 billion euros, equivalent to 2.2 per cent of the EU\u2019s GDP, and is projected to rise to as much as 547 billion by 2029. A dramatic rise \u2013 see below.<\/p>\n

According to data from the EDA, defence spending across the 27 EU Member States followed this trend:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 240 bln\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0279 bln +16%\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 343 bln +23%\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0418\u00a0 bln \u00a0+22%<\/strong><\/h5>\n
Despite these efforts, the EDA reports \u201cserious gaps remain\u201d in the Union\u2019s defence capabilities. That is why, at this stage, I am no longer comfortable with this spending spree. The leaders of the 27 Member States will discuss this at the European Council on 15 October. Let us hope they have the courage to look each other in the eye and admit that, no, European citizens are no better protected than before.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am convinced that Europe\u2019s defence capabilities need to be improved. By this I mean that a Union such as this \u2013 which is almost entirely a member of NATO and has its own defence agreements \u2013 must have a central coordinating body capable of efficiently mobilising the armed forces of individual countries. And this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":437775,"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":[25761],"tags":[36068],"class_list":["post-466684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-directors-point-of-view","tag-spesa-eda"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466684","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\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466684"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":466691,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466684\/revisions\/466691"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}