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European Commission - Speech [Check Against Delivery] Speech by Commissioner Kubilius at the Annual Budget Conference Brussels, 2 July 2026 Are we serious about war? I will start with reminding of what people said in ancient Rome: if you want peace - prepare for war. Preparation for war, investment into defence costs a lot of money. But non-investment into defence would cost us much more inconsequences of war. So inv...
European Commission - Speech [Check Against Delivery] Speech by Commissioner Kubilius at the Annual Budget Conference Brussels, 2 July 2026 Are we serious about war? I will start with reminding of what people said in ancient Rome: if you want peace - prepare for war. Preparation for war, investment into defence costs a lot of money. But non-investment into defence would cost us much more inconsequences of war. So investment intodefence saves our money, our future expenditures. I would like to thank Piotr Serafin for all his efforts to propose in the next MFF five times bigger spending for defence and space. This is impressive and absolutely needed. But still I want to raise the question - are we serious about war? And I want to say few words not just about defence spending, but also about the size of the whole EU budget. The whole MFF - is only about 1.28% GNI. Frugals want to cut it down to 1%. And those positions have not changed for the last several decades. It is time to ask - is it right? We need to remember, that a war is not only big defence expenditure. It is much more. During a war there is a much bigger expenditure on civil protection, on military mobility, on stabilization of finances and economy, etc., etc. It's very useful to compare ourselves with the history of the USA budget. For 70 years after Independence Day in 1789 till the civil war in 1861, the USA federal budget was around 1.5% of national GDP. During the civil war in the USA the federal budget increased up to 12-15% of GDP, after the war it went down to 2.5% and stayed at thislevel till the First World War, when it increased again up to 20% of GDP and later during the Second World War it increased up to 40%. Next year we shall celebrate the 70 yearanniversary of the Rome treaty. We are still at the early stage of USA history. And our budget is like the USA budget during theirfirst 70 years - around 1.2% of GDP. And we have real threats, that Russia will start a war against EU Member States quite soon. In that case – following an analogy with USA history, our EU budget perhaps will increase up to 12- 15% of our GDP. Here comes the question - are we serious about possibility of war? If we are serious - then now is the time to discuss not how to cut EU budget, but how to increase it at least up to 2%. In order to avoid the war. And in order toavoid in the case of war the need to increase EU budget up to 12-15%. It means that an increase of the MFF now would save us from much bigger spending later on, in the case of war. That is what each serious person would do with his family money - he or she would spend more now in order to avoid much larger spending later. It's time to come back to simple prudent logic, when we are talking about the MFF. And now, few sentences - why increased EU defence and space spending is beneficial for Member States and especially for taxpayers. Because defence spending on EU level means real added value and saving of money. First point, very soon we shall have a big question how to replace heavy equipment and strategic enablers, which our transatlantic partners will start to withdraw from Europe. German experts from theSparta 2.0 group calculated that it will cost us 500 bln euro. It cannot be covered by the next MFF, where for defence and space we can have around 130 bln euro, which means for defence around 60- 70 bln. But on the national defence spending level during next 10 years here will be around 7 trln euros, if Member States will increase their defence spending up to 3.5% of GDP. Enough to finance replacement, if the member States will be convinced to spend part of their defence money in a collective way. UsuallyMember States need to be incentivized by EU subsidies to go for such a collective action. That is how EU defence spending creates added value - it creates possibilities for Member States to spend their defence money in a more prudent way. And second point, - we know from experience of previous EU defence programs, that if we are able to incentivize Member States to go for joint procurement, in that case the price for military equipment goes down by 30%. This is the effect of the scale of contract. We can calculate how much can be saved, if all defence procurement during the next 10 years will be realized in the way of joint procurement. Since during the next 10 years Member States are going to spend around 7 trlneuros for defence, we can expect that 40-50% of that money will go for investment into new defence equipment, which means that defence procurement during those 10 years can reach 3-3.5 trln euros. If all ofthat procurement will be successfully incentivized to be realized as joint procurement contracts, in can save 30% from 3.5 trln euros, which means it can save around 1 trln euros of national defence spending, which is more than half of the whole MFF spending. In order to achieve such a huge saving we need to have financial power on EU defence spending level in order to incentivize Member States to go for joint procurement. If Member States really want to avoid war and to save money from their defence spending, they should increase both the whole EU budget and also defence and space spending on EU level. But first of all we need to answer the question - are we serious about the possibility of war. I hope, that we are becoming serious. SPEECH/26/1506
Speech Brief