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View all search resultsEurope’s greatest mistake: Military interests trump security
The collision of an aging population, escalating climate damages and massive remilitarization is set to present an unprecedented, compounding threat to the future well-being of Europeans.
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An Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) is displayed on Aug. 27, 2025, during the inauguration of a new artillery plant of ammunition maker Rheinmetall, in Unterluess, Germany.
(Reuters/Annegret Hilse)
O
n Aug. 27, European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen gave a speech in Paris noting that roughly 10 trillion euros (US$11.6 trillion) sits idle in household bank deposits across the European Union. She lamented that a significant amount of European savings was flowing overseas instead of supporting domestic companies.
What was left unsaid was that those overseas investments have allowed Europe to participate in the kind of emerging-markets' growth that no longer prevails in the Old Continent. Without such investments and offshore revenues, Europe would have faced even deeper stagnation after the 2008 crisis, during the early 2010s debt crisis and the 2020s pandemic depression.
Setting aside these inconvenient facts, von der Leyen’s controversial proposal seeks to unlock up to 470 billion euros in additional investment by integrating the EU's fragmented capital markets into a new, unified Savings and Investment Union (SIU).
The stated objective is to invest these savings into local European companies, to scale up domestic businesses and boost the bloc's economic competitiveness. In this view, rearmament and defense would not be beneficiaries.
But then things get a bit murky.
In her August speech, von der Leyen did not break down or earmark specific exact figures for defense or rearmament out of the 470 billion euros. Moreover, that massive sum is not completely separate from or in addition to the 800-billion-euro defense target. There is overlap.
On Sept. 2, just days after Paris, von der Leyen outlined her "Rearm Europe" plan to mobilize 800 billion euros for “defense and readiness”. One of the primary pillars of this plan is mobilizing private capital through – surprise, surprise! - SIU.
