Defense ministers from the European Union’s five biggest military spenders met in Paris on Wednesday to discuss peace in Ukraine and defense in Europe. Despite reducing their commitment to security on the continent, the US appears ready to scale back its presence.
The group, consisting of France, Germany, the UK, Poland, and Italy, reaffirmed their support for Ukraine in case of a ceasefire or peace deal with Russia. However, they did not promise troops to secure an agreement.
“We need to completely rethink part of Europe’s ground-based air defense,” French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu said. The five countries discussed speeding up existing capacity plans and converging on the European Sky Shield Initiative.
Space is a priority for the group, with concerns over Europe falling behind in space technology. They agreed on the need to accelerate development of early warning systems to detect missile launches from Russia and Iran using satellite and radar.
The EU countries also discussed bottlenecks in the defense industry supply chain and solutions such as relocalization efforts. Scaling up European defense output will require investing in new production lines, but it’s a “chicken-and-egg problem” due to continuing reliance on foreign military equipment.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said: “I am convinced that if we act now, if we choose security in Europe over the nitty-gritty of national interests, we will emerge from this situation strengthened.”
Source: https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2025/03/13/europes-top-defense-ministers-back-ukraine-wont-promise-troops