Europe Faces Down "the Ogre": EU Moves to ReArm in Response to Russian Aggression

Russia’s war against Ukraine has not only redrawn Europe’s security map—it has forced the European Union to rethink its own foundations. What began in 2014 with the illegal annexation of Crimea, escalated into the Donbas war, and exploded into full-scale invasion in February 2022, has shattered whatever residual trust lingered toward Moscow. Today, Russia is seen less as a strategic partner, and more as an existential threat on Europe’s doorstep.

Speaking after the recent Washington summit, French President Emmanuel Macron made it clear where he stands: Vladimir Putin is an “ogre” gnawing at Europe’s borders, seeking not just land, but the unravelling of Europe's stability. The challenge, Macron stressed, is not just military—it’s political, industrial, and technological.

Closing Europe’s Defence Gaps

The war has ruthlessly exposed Europe’s military shortfalls: ageing arsenals, sluggish procurement, and the absence of a coherent industrial strategy. Europe cannot defend its future with good intentions alone. Security demands hard power backed by industrial muscle. 

Brussels is responding with the ReArm Europe Plan, a sweeping proposal to hardwire defence into the very heart of the EU budget and regulatory framework.

At the centre of this shift is an ambitious regulation that amends six major EU programmes—from Horizon Europe to the Digital Europe Programme, Connecting Europe Facility and more—breaking long-standing “civil-only” restrictions on Union funding. For the first time, defence and dual-use technologies will be treated as strategic sectors under the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP).

This move gives Europe’s defence industry direct access to EU investment incentives and broadens the scope of existing programmes to cover ammunition, missile production, AI, cyber resilience, and military mobility corridors—those vital arteries for swiftly moving troops and equipment across Europe.

From Ammunition to AI: Building the EDTIB

The proposal extends the ASAP ammunition and missile programme into 2026, ensuring urgent supplies for Ukraine and replenishment of European stocks. At the same time, it folds dual-use infrastructure—such as secure cloud services and AI-powered defence applications—into mainstream EU investment policy.

Unused funds from older programmes, like Horizon 2020, will be redirected into fresh defence innovation projects, giving Europe’s start-ups and research hubs a leading role in modernising the continent’s arsenal.

Put simply, this is about more than weapons. It is about building a European Defence Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB) robust enough to withstand the realities of a long confrontation with Russia.

A New Strategic Consensus

The European Economic and Social Committee’s latest opinion, ECO/679, underscores the urgency. It calls for sustained and substantial increases in defence spending, shared between the EU and its Member States, to ensure predictability for industry and credibility on the world stage. Expanding STEP with a fourth pillar dedicated to defence signals a fundamental political choice: security is no longer an afterthought in Europe’s innovation agenda—it is the driver of it.

The EU’s Rubicon Moment

Europe once prided itself as a peace project that shunned military logics. But February 2022 was a Rubicon. Russia’s aggression has stripped away illusions and forced the Union to accept a blunt truth: peace in Europe is no longer guaranteed by prosperity and diplomacy alone. It requires power—economic, industrial, and military.

The ReArm Europe Plan is the EU’s answer. Not a return to old militarism,as some critics might slam, but a recognition that deterrence and resilience must be built into the foundations of the European project.

As Macron warned, the ogre is at the gates. Europe, finally, is sharpening its blade.

By Jacek Krawczyk, Rapporteur of ECO/679 Defence-related investments in the EU budget