The Lithuanian minister attended a meeting of EU defense minister in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia last week and later said the planned increase in defense spending is an important political message, especially regarding plans to finance infrastructure to facilitate movement of forces in Europe.
“Improving military mobility in Europe is a priority of both NATO and the EU. We must use every available EU financial instrument. It will be an important issue during the upcoming EU summit in June and the NATO summit in July,” the Lithuanian Ministry of National Defense said in a statement on Saturday.
The European Commission is proposing increasing spending on defense and security by 40 percent in the EU budget for 2021-2027, including spending 6.5 billion euros on military mobility and allocating 13 billion euros to the European Defense Fund, research and a joint weapons fund.
2.5 billion euros would be spent on fighting extremism and cyber attacks, according to the draft budget.