Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Thursday sent a message that it is time for the European Union to make big decisions regarding the strengthening of collective European defence, as well as decisions for further fiscal flexibility, in order for the union's member-states to be able to proceed with defence spending exceeding 2% of their GDP, upon his arrival at the Special European Council in Brussels.
Specifically, the prime minister noted at the beginning of his statement that "the hour of big decisions for the European Union has come today at the Special Council. We will first discuss the proposals submitted by the President of the European Commission on how we can drastically strengthen our deterrent capacity as the European Union".
Mitsotakis also expressed his satisfaction, noting that “ Greece and I personally have fought for a long time to convince the European institutions that what is starting today should have been done a long time ago. I particularly welcome the proposals for further budgetary flexibility, so that member states that already spend more than 2% of GDP on defence spending can continue to do so in this case also, because it is very important that this budgetary flexibility concerns all member states. To encourage those who spend little to spend more and to reward those who already spend more and possibly allow them to spend even more on common European defence.”
At the same time, the prime minister emphasised the importance of the fact that “ new financial instruments are being created from various resources of the Recovery Fund, as this was a permanent Greek position and we expect a further breakdown of these proposals today and especially at the next European Council”.
Mitsotakis described the strategic autonomy of the EU as “ a non-negotiable priority in these critical times we live in.” Regarding developments concerning Ukraine, he underlined that “ in our effort to support Ukraine so that there is a just and sustainable solution, we must under no circumstances abandon the effort to engage the US in this new scheme of a sustainable peace, which will be based first and foremost on strength. It is important to provide security guarantees to Ukraine on the day after and the United States should also participate in this scheme of security guarantees. We must constantly strive in order to say to the US that this is also for their own benefit.”
At the same time, government sources pointed out that the European People's Party adopted the Declaration on European Defence proposed by the Greek prime minister.