EU defence spending amid pandemic: budget cuts in challenging times

As the hopes from vaccination climb high, the EU leaders eye recovery and possible return to some semblance of normalcy in several months. However, the consequences in almost every aspect of our society will persist long time after the pandemic is gone, and decisions to combat the virus will have lasting impact also on EU cohesion and future of its integration process. The EU’s security and defence arena is no exception to such uneasy development. The most obvious consequences for the European defence that might come to mind are the military budget cuts. As the member-states has been fighting the pandemic during the last year, states’ expenditures grew enormously with healthcare and economic stimulus packages representing the biggest burdens for the budgets. As a result, defence spending has not occupied the top positions in member-states priorities even though the armies were significantly involved in combatting the virus in form of distributing aid, setting up field hospitals and many more.

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