Macron calls on Europeans to "invest massively in defense" to guarantee the security of the EU

The shock to world order represented by the Russian invasion of Ukraine poses dramatic immediate battlefield challenges, but also profound strategic reconsiderations.

Both plans surfaced this Friday on the first day of the Munich Security Conference.

In the first, the exhortation of the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, for the Allies to speed up the deliveries to Kiev of their Leopard tanks, in a scenario in which hesitation and slowness are perceived, was significant.

In the second, French President Emmanuel Macron called on Europeans to "invest massively in defense" and "rethink security doctrine" to make Europe a seated player at the geopolitical tables of the future.

“If we want peace, we have to invest in the means to have it.

France is doing its part, but there needs to be investment ambition at a European level," Macron said.

“This also means strengthening the industrial and technological base of our defense.

We need more production capacity, and we need more standardization, more simplification.”

The French president indicated that, in this context, he wants to organize a conference on European air defense in Paris, which in his opinion should address "both the strategic and industrial dimensions."

"When it comes to European security, we have to think about it, produce it and guarantee it," claimed the French leader.

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Scholz also mentioned the need to move forward on the path of strengthening and greater integration of the European military dimension.

He recalled, among various issues, the projects underway for a future air combat system (with France and Spain), another initiative in terms of ground combat (with France) and precisely the coordination of a common air defense.

“We have to consolidate a geopolitical Europe.

A Europe more capable of acting ”, he considered.

Beyond military issues, Scholz highlighted the need for the EU to be more resilient, less exposed to critical dependencies, but advocated achieving it, not through deglobalization - which he considered economically harmful and contrary to the values ​​of openness of the European project―, but with a surgical action, reducing risks in strategic areas, diversifying supply chains, expanding networks.

"This is not the time for dialogue"

The two presidents agreed on the perspective that the conflict in Ukraine will be prolonged and underlining the determination to maintain unitary support from the allies for kyiv as long as it is necessary.

"This is not the time for dialogue," Macron said.

“It is not our arms shipments that prolong the war.

Quite the opposite.

The sooner [Russian President Vladimir] Putin understands that he will not achieve his imperialist goal, the greater the chance of an end to the war,” Scholz said.

Both spoke at the conference in the Bavarian capital ―which this year brings together more than 30 heads of state or government, a hundred ministers, dozens of leaders of international organizations, senior military commanders and experts from a large number of countries, but not from Russia and Iran, which were not invited to participate― after the intervention by videoconference by the President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelensky.

He insisted on the concept that the speed of conformation and execution of allied decisions is "crucial", and that "hesitancy is a resource on which Putin's dictatorship feeds" and that it results in more deaths and destruction in Ukraine. .

Precisely in reference to this race against the clock before a Russia that tries to rearm and launch new offensives, Scholz found himself in the unusual role of urging the allies to expedite military aid to Kiev when so often their cautious behavior during the war has garnered intense criticism.

After the pondered green light from Berlin to the delivery of Leopard tanks, in the hands of a large number of allies, it turns out that in many cases delays are detected to proceed with deliveries.

“Everyone who can supply them should.

Germany will do everything in its power to facilitate it,” he said.

The Bavarian meeting comes at a time when there are growing signs of a Russia motivated to launch new offensives after a period spent recovering from the massive losses suffered in the first phase of the invasion.

Zelensky declared himself skeptical about a possible participation of Belarus in the hostilities.

Beyond the issue of the conflict in Ukraine and the strategic future of the EU, the Munich conference is being held this year marked by the growing tensions between the United States and China, symbolized by the penetration of a Chinese balloon ―with espionage capacity, according to Washington―in US airspace.

There is expectation of a possible meeting in Munich between the leaders of the diplomacies of both powers.

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