“Estonia’s message to our European partners is clear – all countries must contribute significantly more to their security and collective defence,” Michal said before the meeting.
“In addition to the contribution of each country, cooperation across the European Union, such as joint projects and investments in industry, is important,” the Prime Minister said. “In order to find additional funding, we need to seriously consider common defence bonds. In this way, we could quickly increase Europe’s defence readiness, while at the same time giving impetus to the defence industry here,” he added.
Support for Ukraine also needs to be stepped up, Michal said. “If national inventories and wallets are empty, we must use the frozen Russian assets, which amount to more than 200 billion euros in the European Union,” the Prime Minister said.
Michal and Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo also plan to draw the attention of colleagues to the need to be better prepared for various hybrid threats, including the protection of shared undersea infrastructure. “At the European Union level, this means, among other things, creating better monitoring and repair capabilities,” he explained.
In addition to the heads of state and government of the Member States of the European Union, Mark Rutte, Secretary General of NATO, and Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, have also been invited to the meeting.
