- Alice Davis
- BBC
Sanna Marin says: Europe is not yet strong enough
Finland’s prime minister, Sanna Marin, said Europe “isn’t strong enough” to resist Russia’s invasion of Ukraine without US support.
During a visit to Australia, SANA, whose country is awaiting a decision on its application for NATO membership, said Europe must shore up its defences.
“I have to be very frank, Europe is not strong enough at the moment and we will be in trouble without the US,” he added.
The United States is by far Ukraine’s biggest military backer in its war against Russia.
Since the start of the war about 10 months ago, the United States has pledged to provide military aid to Ukraine, worth $18.6 billion, according to a report revealed by the British House of Commons last month.
The European Union is in second place, among military supporters of Ukraine, then Great Britain, according to the assurances of the Kiel Institute for Global Economic Research. But all of this help pales in comparison to its American counterpart.
And at a time when Europe’s stockpiles of arms are dwindling due to its support for Ukraine, SANA says Europe’s defense lines need support.
Speaking at the Lowy Institute think tank in Sydney, the Finnish prime minister said: “The United States has given Ukraine a lot of weapons, huge financial support, as well as humanitarian support, and Europe is not strong enough yet.”
He added that Europe should be keen to “build these capabilities, with regards to its defense lines and related industries, and ensure that we are prepared to deal with various situations”.
Former US President Donald Trump used to publicly criticize NATO member states for their insufficient financial contributions to the alliance budget.
In 2020, it was estimated that the United States spent about 3.7% of its national product on the defense budget, while defense allocations for the remaining NATO members reached just 1.77%.
During her speech, Sana criticized some European countries that have been trying to build closer relations with Russia in recent decades.
He added: “Europe has been adopting a strategy of rapprochement with Russia for a long time to buy energy and to consolidate economic relations with it in the hope that this will prevent wars with it.”
And he added that these approaches “have been proven completely wrong”.
SANA stressed that European countries should have listened to countries like Poland and the Baltic states, who warned that “Russia doesn’t care about its economic relations, nor about economic sanctions, and they (Russians) don’t care about any of those matters ,” when it comes to the question of the invasion of Ukraine.
The European Union, the United States and other countries have imposed large-scale sanctions on Russia to reduce its economic capabilities to continue the war in Ukraine.
Several other European countries and NATO members have pledged to increase their defense budgets after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began.
And Germany announced 9 months ago that it would be allocating an additional $113 billion to its defense budget, and it pledged in the constitution to increase its contribution to NATO’s budget to 2% of its national income.
And in June / In June, the United Kingdom announced, during Boris Johnson’s presence as prime minister, that it would bring its defense budget to 2.5 percent of national product by the end of the current decade.
NATO has stressed that all member states should contribute at least 2 percent of their national product to the alliance budget, to support the alliance’s military readiness. However, there are recent calls from a number of NATO members to raise the minimum to 3% of each country’s national product.
Finland, which shares a long border with Russia, applied to join NATO seven months ago. Two months later, a protocol on the conditions of accession was signed. However, the request has not yet been approved by the alliance members.
