It has taken three years, but Europe is at last putting its collective economy on an industrial war footing. The sums of money are eye-watering.
One leaked plan for German rearmament circulating in Berlin proposes a €400bn (£330bn) blitz of extra spending on national defence, buttressed by another €500bn to rebuild Germany’s infrastructure.
Another leaked plan revealed by Corriere della Sera talks of converting Italy’s struggling car industry into a revamped ecosystem of weapons production, with subcontractors across Lombardy and the Veneto supplying the German armaments plants much as they now supply car components for Volkswagen, Mercedes and BMW.
“It is becoming obvious to everybody that defence spending is the way to offset job losses in the car industry,” said Holger Schmieding, the chief economist at Berenberg Bank.
What is also becoming obvious is that Donald Trump either wants a Russian victory in Ukraine, or is so besotted with the TV reality show of his peace deal that he will smash America’s alliance system out of pique if thwarted.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, joined the bidding on Tuesday with an €800bn “Rearm Europe Plan” using emergency powers under Article 122 of the Treaties, the immediate riposte to Trump’s overnight outrage.
Funds are to be rushed into air defence, artillery, missiles and drones, with a target of raising average EU military budgets by 1.5 percentage points of GDP over four years. The mechanisms are vague. The direction of travel is clear.
The immense figures under discussion in Berlin would have been politically unthinkable a week ago, before the total loss of faith in US friendship.
If enacted on anything close to this scale, such a high-octane blast of military Keynesianism will entirely change the economic and geopolitical shape of the world. It is the coming boom in Europe that we should all be betting on.
Bavaria’s premier Markus Söder is the weather-vane of our times, leading the call for a full-blown revival of German military power along with a joint nuclear deterrent in concert with France and the UK.
“We need a drone force of 100,000 drones, 800 new tanks, 2,000 Patriot missiles and 1,000 Taurus just for Germany as a protective shield like the ‘Iron Dome’. Only the strong will be taken seriously,” he said.
Europe is in roughly the same position today as America in 1939, when the US defence budget was 2pc of GDP and the miniscule US army ranked with the Belgian army. Spending rose to 5.6pc of GDP in 1941, 16pc in 1942, 35pc by 1943 and peaked at 41pc in 1945.
It has taken three years, but Europe is at last putting its collective economy on an industrial war footing. The sums of money are eye-watering.
One leaked plan for German rearmament circulating in Berlin proposes a €400bn (£330bn) blitz of extra spending on national defence, buttressed by another €500bn to rebuild Germany’s infrastructure.
Another leaked plan revealed by Corriere della Sera talks of converting Italy’s struggling car industry into a revamped ecosystem of weapons production, with subcontractors across Lombardy and the Veneto supplying the German armaments plants much as they now supply car components for Volkswagen, Mercedes and BMW.
“It is becoming obvious to everybody that defence spending is the way to offset job losses in the car industry,” said Holger Schmieding, the chief economist at Berenberg Bank.
What is also becoming obvious is that Donald Trump either wants a Russian victory in Ukraine, or is so besotted with the TV reality show of his peace deal that he will smash America’s alliance system out of pique if thwarted.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, joined the bidding on Tuesday with an €800bn “Rearm Europe Plan” using emergency powers under Article 122 of the Treaties, the immediate riposte to Trump’s overnight outrage.
Funds are to be rushed into air defence, artillery, missiles and drones, with a target of raising average EU military budgets by 1.5 percentage points of GDP over four years. The mechanisms are vague. The direction of travel is clear.
The immense figures under discussion in Berlin would have been politically unthinkable a week ago, before the total loss of faith in US friendship.
If enacted on anything close to this scale, such a high-octane blast of military Keynesianism will entirely change the economic and geopolitical shape of the world. It is the coming boom in Europe that we should all be betting on.
Bavaria’s premier Markus Söder is the weather-vane of our times, leading the call for a full-blown revival of German military power along with a joint nuclear deterrent in concert with France and the UK.
“We need a drone force of 100,000 drones, 800 new tanks, 2,000 Patriot missiles and 1,000 Taurus just for Germany as a protective shield like the ‘Iron Dome’. Only the strong will be taken seriously,” he said.
Europe is in roughly the same position today as America in 1939, when the US defence budget was 2pc of GDP and the miniscule US army ranked with the Belgian army. Spending rose to 5.6pc of GDP in 1941, 16pc in 1942, 35pc by 1943 and peaked at 41pc in 1945.