European rearmament is going to turn the world upside down
It has taken three years, but Europe is at last putting its collective economy on an industrial war footing. The sums of money are eye-watering.
One leaked plan for German rearmament circulating in Berlin proposes a €400bn (£330bn) blitz of extra spending on national defence, buttressed by another €500bn to rebuild Germany's infrastructure.
Another leaked plan revealed by Corriere della Sera talks of converting Italy's struggling car industry into a revamped ecosystem of weapons production, with subcontractors across Lombardy and the Veneto supplying the German armaments plants much as they now supply car components for Volkswagen, Mercedes and BMW.
'It is becoming obvious to everybody that defence spending is the way to offset job losses in the car industry,' said Holger Schmieding, the chief economist at Berenberg Bank.
What is also becoming obvious is that Donald Trump either wants a Russian victory in Ukraine, or is so besotted with the TV reality show of his peace deal that he will smash America's alliance system out of pique if thwarted.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, joined the bidding on Tuesday with an €800bn 'Rearm Europe Plan' using emergency powers under Article 122 of the Treaties, the immediate riposte to Trump's overnight outrage.
Funds are to be rushed into air defence, artillery, missiles and drones, with a target of raising average EU military budgets by 1.5 percentage points of GDP over four years. The mechanisms are vague. The direction of travel is clear.
The immense figures under discussion in Berlin would have been politically unthinkable a week ago, before the total loss of faith in US friendship.
If enacted on anything close to this scale, such a high-octane blast of military Keynesianism will entirely change the economic and geopolitical shape of the world. It is the coming boom in Europe that we should all be betting on.
Bavaria's premier Markus Söder is the weather-vane of our times, leading the call for a full-blown revival of German military power along with a joint nuclear deterrent in concert with France and the UK.
'We need a drone force of 100,000 drones, 800 new tanks, 2,000 Patriot missiles and 1,000 Taurus just for Germany as a protective shield like the 'Iron Dome'. Only the strong will be taken seriously,' he said.
Europe is in roughly the same position today as America in 1939, when the US defence budget was 2pc of GDP and the miniscule US army ranked with the Belgian army. Spending rose to 5.6pc of GDP in 1941, 16pc in 1942, 35pc by 1943 and peaked at 41pc in 1945.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NBC News
36 minutes ago
- NBC News
Los Angeles braces for fourth day of anti-ICE protests
President Donald Trump defended his decision to deploy the National Guard to Los Angeles amid anti-ICE protests. NBC News' David Noriega explains where troops are posted throughout the city and NBC News' Vaughn Hillyard details Trump's fraught relationship with California leaders.
Telegraph
40 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Gavin Newsom finally finds a cause: taking on Trump
The Democratic governor of liberal California has welcomed Donald Trump to his state, cosied up to Conservative podcasters, and slashed healthcare provisions for illegal immigrants this year. But the reinvention of Gavin Newsom as the sort of Democrat who might be able to win back Republican voters came to a shuddering halt during a weekend of riots. With Mr Trump ordering troops onto his streets, Mr Newsom hit back, accusing the president of intentionally inflaming a difficult situation. It leaves Mr Newsom with no choice but to halt his drift Right-ward, said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic strategist. 'If not, he loses his entire constituency,' he said. 'In other words, there's a toleration level for moving to the centre, but not when it comes to massive chaos in Los Angeles.' Mr Newsom has put himself at the front of Democrat efforts to examine how they lost the 2024 election so badly. He launched a podcast in March in which he picks the brains of leading figures in Trump world. And Mr Newsom angered liberals with the very first episode, in which he interviewed Charlie Kirk, the controversial Conservative, when he said it was unfair that transgender athletes could compete in women's sport. He also said Democrats simply could not compete with the likes of Mr Trump and Elon Musk when it came to online reach. 'We're toast,' he said. Last month, facing a budget crunch, the telegenic governor back-pedalled on a promise of healthcare for all. He announced a freeze in enrolment for undocumented adults in the state's public health insurance programme. He has also urged cities to ban encampments for homeless people, cracking down on the tent cities that have blighted so much of California. And in January, he thanked Mr Trump for federal help in rebuilding after devastating wildfires that swept through Los Angeles. 'I've been always a hard-headed pragmatist,' he told reporters recently when quizzed about his shifting positions. 'I'm not an ideologue.' Trump a 'stone cold liar' That all seems a long time ago after immigration raids around Los Angeles on Friday sparked three days of riots, and an order by Mr Trump to send in 2,000 National Guard troops. Tom Homan, the president's border tsar, threatened to arrest the California governor if he got in the way. 'Come and get me, tough guy,' was Mr Newsom's pithy response on X. After Mr Trump agreed the governor should be arrested, the governor shot back saying it was 'a line we cannot cross as a nation'. He threatened to sue the federal government for its illegal act and called the president a 'stone cold liar' for failing to bring up his plan to send the National Guard when they spoke by telephone. 'There is currently no need for the National Guard to be deployed in Los Angeles and to do so in this unlawful manner and for such lengthy period is a serious breach of state sovereignty that seems intentionally designed to inflame the situation while simultaneously depriving the state from deploying these personnel and resources where they are truly required,' he wrote in a letter. That puts him at the centre of the news headlines, said James Carville, the veteran Democratic strategist and former adviser to Bill Clinton, even if it was too early to say that the party had finally found a national figurehead to oppose Mr Trump. But he said Mr Newsom's full-blooded reaction to Mr Trump and his tsar did not mark a reversal of his shift to the Right, but were compatible with his rejection of progressive totems such as identity politics. 'I don't think we should say we can render a verdict after 48 hours, but his actions have been totally what he would expect,' he said after Mr Trump had 'invaded' his state with troops. At the same time, he added, the crackdown on illegal immigrants remained a popular part of the platform that helped Republicans reclaim the White House last year. That leaves the governor and Democrats with a fine line to straddle: taking on Mr Trump over his decision to send in troops but without being painted as soft on illegal immigration or unrest in the streets. 'I think Trump sees all kinds of trouble on the horizon,' Mr Carville said. 'What he's very good at is just doing something to dominate the news.'
Reuters
42 minutes ago
- Reuters
Trump says meeting on Iran planned for Thursday
WASHINGTON, June 9 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said the U.S. and Iran would continue talks on Thursday for a nuclear deal, adding that Tehran was a tough negotiator and that the main impediment to an agreement was over enrichment. "We're doing a lot of work on Iran right now," Trump told reporters at an economic event at the White House. "It's tough. ... They're great negotiators." "They're just asking for things that you can't do. They don't want to give up what they have to give up," he added. "They seek enrichment. We can't have enrichment. We want just the opposite. And so far, they're not there." "They have given us their thoughts on the deal. And I said, you know, it's just not acceptable," Trump said as Tehran plans to hand Washington a counter-proposal. Trump also said he discussed Iran among other topics with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, adding that the call went well.
