Almost fifteen billion in generic military expenditure: this is how much Italy’s commitment to adhering to the new pro-European narrative under the banner of urgent common defense would amount to, due to Trump’s tantrums with respect to NATO and the “aims” of Putin, whose claws could sink into the living flesh of Eastern Europe.
I will not open the debate on both issues here, it is enough for me to say that: 1) for a few decades America has been complaining because Europe is “grabbing” NATO coverage, but this does not mean that the USA will leave the Alliance (not having the orders would be a blow for US industry); 2) Putin is already too exposed in Ukraine to open other fronts and in any case the Kremlin’s game is a little more complex than we represent it.
Having said this, let’s try to focus on some aspects that concern military-oriented Europe. First of all, the EU has reached this point after decades and decades of a pacifist and demilitarized narrative, of which the highest point was: “Thanks to the euro there will be no more wars.” Ukraine and Gaza, i.e. the backbone of Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, reveal the European political deficit. Let’s move on. They say: Putin is a dangerous dictator who threatens us, not just Ukraine; so we have to defend ourselves. Never mind if for years and years with this gentleman (who had never hidden his sights on Great Russia and his irritation at the positioning of NATO close to its borders) we did gold deals in the name of gas and oil.
But now it is time to arm ourselves and create a European army. They say: we are late. But they don’t add that if the European army hasn’t been created so far, it was because France and Germany hadn’t agreed on how to divide the cake, from tanks to fighter jets. The European army does not exist, but the Commission will give individual states the opportunity to borrow on favorable terms to buy weapons and… surroundings. Which is the most colossal contradiction or failure of the Union: hadn’t they said that a united Europe was urgent to defeat the urges of nationalism and sovereignism? And that we had to overcome the national states “guilty” of the wars of the twentieth century? Here, now the Commission says to those same states: spend on weapons, we guarantee. Thus, the State out of fear of which it accelerated with the single currency and everything else is the one that (united) arms itself the most.
Let’s reconnect the threads, then. Italy is considering whether to use SAFE funding: 14.9 billion. Defense Minister Crosetto speaks of “weapons as medicine” (a very unfortunate expression) and recalls that the SAFE regulation sets a precise restriction on “European origin”: at least 65% of the components of each weapon system purchased with these loans must come from the European Union, from the European Economic Area/EFTA or from Ukraine (which in the meantime, with our money, we have made into a world player in drones… Think of the contradiction: we pay Russia for gas and we give money to Ukraine for defend themselves from Russia), while the remaining 35% can come from non-EU suppliers. Obviously it is known that military Made in the EU depends a lot on essential components (advanced semiconductors, rare earths, high-end sensors) almost exclusively the prerogative of the USA, China and Taiwan.
Last point. Was there a need for a further acceleration of military spending? No. The continent’s military outlay has already exceeded $864 billion. Adding the 27 EU states, the amount is in the order of 455-465 billion dollars, up from 370 billion in 2024. Germany is now the first European country and the fourth in the world, with 113.6 billion dollars (+23.9%), ahead of the United Kingdom and France; Poland, fourteenth in the world, grew by 23% to 46.8 billion. Italy increased military spending by 20%, reaching 48.1 billion dollars, twelfth in the world. Just to say, Russia has invested 190 billion dollars in 2025 (+5.9%), equal to 7.5% of GDP and – in aggregate terms – EU spending remains more than twice that of Russia, with a ratio of around 2.4 to 1.
A final consideration: the recent conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and Iran are demonstrating that wars solve nothing, that there are no winners and they do not bring any “improvement” to the situations they were triggered by. So the moral is that of Alberto Sordi: as long as there is war, there is hope. For gun sellers.
