During the lobbying session on the 17th of April, it became quite apparent that there was one clause that caused a lot of chatter and debates.
The clause was from ECON/DEVE’s resolution and it stated as follows:
“Mandates 2% of the EU budget to be spent increasing defence manufacturing that member nations spend 2% of their national GDP on defence with a special focus on increasing domestic production ability of defence materials”
To get a better understanding of the overall opinion of delegates, I conducted a field interview asking only one question.
“What is your opinion on the first ECON/DEVE OC?”
“Well, I don’t like it, I don’t think it’s something we should infer. I don’t think we should force European nations; – even the European Union members that are not a part of NATO – we shouldn’t force them to spend 2% of their budget on defense. We can’t do that and we shouldn’t do that. We are an economic union, not a military one.”
“Yeah, no, I don’t like it. It’s about a 2% minimum military spending in the EU. The EU is not a military alliance and making it a military alliance would be a terrible idea, so I don’t agree with that.”
“It’s really dumb, they can’t do that. It’s forbidden. It goes against all EU laws, they can’t force it. But there’s other ones that do it, too, like the one in FEMM.”
“We have 2% of our national budget to be spent on national defence. So, I don’t understand adding 2% of the joint EU budget to be spent on increasing defence manufacturing. That’s my first impression.”
“Although it does have good intentions, they would expect us to give 2% of our national GDP for different materials, when nations are already giving so much into the army and defence systems. So, it had good intentions, but I think it’s not an ideal system.”
“We have to scratch it. It can’t be in the resolution of the committee. It’s a crime.”
Author: Konstantinos Paraskakis