We sit down with David McAllister, the chair of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee. He talks to us about the security threats facing Europe, and what defence gaps the EU urgently needs to close. For McAllister, the EU is "not at war with the Russian Federation, but we are no longer at peace with Russia".
He also believes that the EU is not, as yet, capable of making sovereign decisions in certain areas of defence "because we are too dependent on US capabilities." Asked about the worsening security situation that Europe faces, McAllister says: "We need to establish a fully fledged European defence by the end of this decade. We need to be able to defend ourselves against all the imminent threats we are facing. And that means spending more, but also spending more effectively, because it is taxpayers' money that we are spending in large numbers.
There are certain military capabilities that we don't have in Europe, for the time being. There are fields in which we have to move ahead. I'm talking about ammunition and anti-drone systems.
I'm talking about satellite intelligence. I'm talking about air-to-air refuelling. I'm talking about air defence in general.
These are fields where we are not in a situation to take sovereign decisions because we are too dependent on US capabilities. We have to close these gaps urgently." Speaking of threats, McAllister asserts that "we are not at war with the Russian Federation, but we are longer at peace with Russia. We have every day, every week, violations of our airspace, attacks on our critical infrastructure, cyberattacks.
That is also why it was so positive that the Federal Republic of Germany got the immediate solidarity of all 26 other member states (after the drone attack on Leipzig airport, attributed to Russian special services). An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. And that's why it's correct to sanction the Russian Federation, to further sanction individuals, but also to come up with new additional ideas for how we can better protect our critical infrastructure." We ask about German Chancellor Friedrich Merz leading the charge to secure hundreds of billions of euros in cuts from the proposed EU budget, also known as the Multiannual Financial Framework, or MFF.
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