EU Kaja Kalas says Europe should spend more on defense

EU Member States must increase defense costs in order to keep up with threats to the continent, warned its foreign policy chief.

Kaja Kalas, who was Prime Minister of Estonia until July 2024, said that “every euro spent on school, health care and well -being (E) vulnerable” if the block does not maintain strong protection.

US President Donald Trump was right to criticize Europe’s spending, an average of 1.9%, she added.

She also said that Russia spends 9% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defense and said that Europe’s costs are obviously not enough in the light of the war in Ukraine.

“To prevent war, we have to spend more, that’s clear,” she told BBC World Service weekend programS

Kalas said Member States also need to work together to “press” Russia economically and hinted at a new sanction package next month to mark three years since the war in Ukraine.

The EU must be “creative” regarding the restriction of “Russia’s ability to wage the war,” she said, adding that the pressing of Russian President Vladimir Putin “is the way to end this war because Putin is the one who is it has started. “

Prior to the EU publication last December, Kalas repeatedly summoned for higher levels of defense spending while she was executing Estonia’s First Female Prime Minister as the First Female Prime Minister.

In February 2024, she said she wanted NATO countries to increase defense costs to 3% of their GDP.

Alliance members have committed themselves to spending at least 2% of GDP on defense after the Russian forces seized the southern Crimea Peninsula in Ukraine and Proxy, supported by Moscow, controlled large areas of Eastern Ukraine in 2014.

As Estonian Prime Minister, Kalas promised more than 1% of the country’s GDP in Kiev to help strengthen the military efforts of Ukraine.

“If every NATO side did this, Ukraine would win” She told the BBC last yearS

According to NATO’s estimates for 2024Estonia’s defense costs as part of GDP were the second highest in the Military Union.

In December 2024, NATO Secretary General Mark Rute said that Member States would have to “move to military thinking” and spend “significantly more than 2%” for defense.

During his first term, US President Donald Trump put pressure on NATO members to increase defense costs and later called for commitment to fulfill 4% of GDP.

Shortly before his second intervention in January, Trump called on European NATO members to spend 5%, telling reporters: “They can all afford it.”

Asked if she saw the war ending in favor of Ukraine, Kalas said it was “absolutely” still alive in her mind.

“I don’t really see another option. I want to say that if we let the brutal aggression thrive, then we’ll see it in other parts of the world,” she added.

She said, “All aggressors or future aggressors in the world clearly take notes on how we respond to Russia’s aggression.”