a few seconds agoBorrell: EU must be able to defend Europe by building a strong pole within NATO
Periskopi(2 years ago)
(2 years ago)European Union for Foreign Policy and Security High Representative Josep Borrell has conveyed a message to member states. Borrell urged them to react decisively to the wars currently under way in Ukraine and Israel, as well as to involvement. Iran, Palestine. He said the EU must become [...]
Borrell urged them to react decisively to the wars currently under way in Ukraine and Israel, as well as to involvement. Iran, Palestine.
He said the EU should become capable of protecting Europe by building a strong European pillar within NATO.
According to him, this should be done in a short time, not for war purposes, but for its prevention.
“We must take on our strategic responsibility and become able to defend Europe itself by building a strong European pillar within NATO. And we must take this step forward in a very short period of time. Not that we intend to go to war. Rather, we want to prevent it by mastering the means to surely prevent any aggressor. This does not mean that the creation of a European army is and will remain in the future an exclusive competence of our member states do more at the national level in 2023 we have spent an average of 1.7% of our GDP on protection, this percentage should increase to more than 2%<18x1>, Borrell said.
The Spanish chief diplomat has demanded that the armies of European countries continue to help Ukraine militarily in fighting Russia, but has stressed that this process is going through difficulties.
Moreover, we face significant quality challenges in new military technologies, such as drones or artificial intelligence. Ukraine is not the only war in our immediate neighborhood. Hamas' brutal terrorist attack on Israel and Israel's disproportionate response are under way and endanger the spread of war throughout the Middle East. The region, as we saw with the Iranian attack on Israel late last week, has raised doubts about Europe's capacity to be an effective geopolitical actor”, Borrell stressed.
According to him, due to lack of means, the EU's influence on the Israeli war is limited, while the countries' response he described as inefficient.
We were highly inefficient so far, because as the Union united unanimously we were divided. Our common stand has been behind that of the United States, for example, for sanctioning violent settlers in the West Coast. Moreover, we have sent conflicting signals for example regarding our support for UNRAA, our division has cost us dearly in the Arab world, but even in a large number of countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia have been widely exploited by Russian propaganda, and this propaganda was quite successful”, the senior European official said.
He stressed that if Russian President Vladimir Putin wins the war in Ukraine, he will not stop there.
