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The Belgian Defense Minister said that the defense industry in Europe should be integrated into a handful of players who are able to meet the military needs of the continent after the Trump administration threatened to withdraw American support.
European Union capitals and their partners, including London, began emergency talks on how to increase Defense Military capabilities and spending, and providing security guarantees to Ukraine in the event of a possible peace agreement in the United States, Russia for their heads.
“Europe needs more integrated defense,” Theo Frankken told the Financial Times. “We need better production and work together,” he said, adding that in the fragmented scene in Europe, each country has continued its own projects, which led to the orders of the small batch, the high maintenance costs and lack of efficiency.
US Defense Secretary Beit Higseth warned last week that the military presence of his country in Europe would not be “forever”, which raised concerns in many capitals about the withdrawal of nearly 90,000 American soldiers and weapons stationed on the continent.
Frankken said that the Trump administration was an invitation to wake up, as it is expected that “further integration of defense companies and industrial factories” “in the next 12 months.”
Europe needed to form up to four “really large” defense companies, such as Rheinmetall, Airbus and Thales. He said this would improve quality “and” reduce the costs “of weapons on the continent.
but Belgian The minister noted the lack of leadership between the heads of state and the European government to pay for such ambitious projects. “We need someone to say,” well, guys, we are in a deep shit. “We are in big problems and we need to take great steps.”
European joint projects have not yet succeeded, partly due to the insistence of each country to provide part of the total product. “Just the name of one European project, which is an integrated project that achieved success.”
We need to stop each country from the presence of a team of engineers. . . “In an attempt to make a compromise,” he said, adding that the current operation was due to the position of all ideas “in a bottle, then we shook it and then we were like a helicopter or the plane.
He said that the market division, high costs and quality are less than the main reasons that European governments prefer to buy US weapons. These arms sales can be an incentive for the United States to continue to engage with Europe. “But European allies need to do more,” he said.
Belgium, the home of many weapons companies, including FN Horstal, is to join the Franco-Fighter-a fighter German-a due resolution by the end of the year.
Frankken said that despite the monotheism engine, large companies should not “accommodate every one institution” and the smaller institutions must “continue.”
To finance the defense defense, Frankken said it supports the European Commission’s proposal to relax its financial rules for defense spending, to allow member states to take more debts.
He said: “You can see that we need more money at the present time to get more purchases and gain a lot of things.” Belgium has one of the highest levels of debt to GDP in the mass-more than 100 percent, compared to the European Union threshold by 60 percent.
Frankken said that he was “not really” in favor of joint borrowing of defense financing – an idea that France promotes and others – but he said it might be part of a greater compromise about raising defense spending in the future.
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