EU needs to do more to boost defense spending: Italy’s Meloni

Rome: A proposal to exclude defense spending from European Union budget rules is a first step, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Wednesday, insisting that more was needed to beef up Europe’s contribution to NATO.

Earlier this month, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she would propose exempting defense from the EU fiscal rulebook, as Europe grapples with US pressure to pay more for its own security.

For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.

Von der Leyen’s initiative “is a first step. I think this first step should be followed by other solutions,” Meloni said at a press conference in Rome with her Swedish counterpart Ulf Kristersson.

The US demands are a problem for highly-indebted Italy.

The country is projecting its defense spending will hit 1.61 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2027, the economy minister said in November, far below a current 2 percent NATO goal, which US President Donald Trump wants raised to 5 percent.

Italy has called on the EU to use common debt to pay for higher defense spending – traditionally anathema to the more fiscally conservative northern European EU members such as Germany and the Netherlands.

Speaking about the three-year-old Russia-Ukraine war, which Trump has pledged to end quickly, Meloni reiterated that security guarantees had to be offered to Kyiv involving both the US and Europe.

“I believe that these security guarantees should be implemented in the context of the (NATO) Atlantic Alliance, because I think that this is the best framework for guaranteeing a peace that is neither fragile nor temporary,” she said.