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Defend a defense capability for Europe

(B2) André Flahaut, the President of the Chamber of Deputies (Belgian), made a committed statement on Defense Europe. The former Belgian Minister of Defense intervened before the parliamentary assembly of the CFSP in Vilnius.

An inability to act alone

« No country can act alone in defense ". European countries spend 190 million euros on their defense and have "a million and a half soldiers" in the ranks. But ultimately, " we have very poor operational capabilities ". With the help of the economic crisis, budgets will decrease further. " We can and must reduce our defense spending ". They just need to be more efficient.

Relying on what can be called the "Belgian model" of cooperation, he put forward three ideas: the creation of a single defense staff, joint forces, which makes it possible to offer "more coherence, more operating flexibility and transversality”; the development of common drones and combat planes on the model of the Airbus A400M transport plane, and common training - such as the Franco-Belgian one for pilots or the Belgian-Dutch one for the navy.

(NGV)

 

Nicolas Gros Verheyde

Chief editor of the B2 site. Graduated in European law from the University of Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne and listener to the 65th session of the IHEDN (Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Défense Nationale. Journalist since 1989, founded B2 - Bruxelles2 in 2008. EU/NATO correspondent in Brussels for Sud-Ouest (previously West-France and France-Soir).

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