“Typically, Europe is dramatically disoriented,” mentioned Tusk. “There’s a lack of cooperation.”
Poland has quickly elevated its protection spending to 4.12 p.c of GDP in 2024 — simply beating NATO’s 2 p.c goal and making it the EU’s highest spender per capita. Germany has pledged to hit 2 p.c this yr.
Tusk desires the alliance to do a greater job of coordinating its spending and applications. Particularly, Poland want to increase protection spending by initiatives resembling joint EU debt for army investments, also called protection bonds. Nonetheless, eventually week’s EU summit, Germany categorically opposed this feature.
“Germany mustn’t finance our tanks. We’ll do it ourselves,” Tusk mentioned. “We might identical to to level out to everybody, together with our German companions, that the problems of the Continent’s safety shouldn’t be seen individually and typically in competitors with numerous initiatives.”
Scholz has been pushing for extra nations to enroll to Germany’s Sky Protect initiative, launched final yr and geared toward collectively procuring air protection techniques. Tusk has beforehand mentioned Poland would be a part of the platform.
Tusk can be in search of EU assist for a protection line alongside Poland and the Baltic area’s border with Belarus and Russia.
“I would really like Europe to have the ability to coordinate … between competing initiatives of the assorted nations, and this isn’t but coordinated,” mentioned Tusk.