Maskinetransskriberet

Formand António Costa: Good evening. First of all, let me thank Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen for hosting us here in Copenhagen for this informal European Council. Our meeting today had one core theme, safeguarding the security of our continent.

European citizens are justifiable concerned about Russia's increasingly provocative and reckless behavior. When Denmark, Poland, or Estonia act against incursions into their airspaces, they are protecting our common borders and territory, those of the European Union.

They have our full support because we are committed to face together common strengths on all fronts, whether conventional, hybrid or cyber, with common purpose. In fact, that purpose has been clear since the start of Russia's war in Ukraine and that purpose has a name, to build the Europe of defense. In the past three years, European allies have significantly increased their defense spending. Earlier this year, they agreed to increase their spending targets even further.

To support this effort, at the European level, we have put in place the SAFE instrument worth 115 billion euros. In March, European leaders agreed on the priority capabilities on which our work should focus for the security of all Europeans.

Air and missile defense, artillery, drones and anti-drone systems, military mobility, cyber resilience among others. Today we went one step further. I welcome the scoping paper presented by the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and the High Representative Kaya Callas.

And leaders broadly supported initial priority flagship projects that will strengthen Europe's security, including the European Drone Wall and the Eastern Flank Watch. This is a key step on our path to achieving combat defense readiness by 2030. It reflects the acute threat on Eastern flank is currently under. At the same time, it is clear that Europe's borders will only be secure if all Europe's borders are secure in the 360 degrees approach. To build the Europe of defense, we need efficient political oversight and coordination to keep track on how we are advancing.

Our defense ministers need to play an increased role to push work forward between the European Council meetings and to track milestones for progress. Moving on to our discussions about Ukraine, since 24 February 2022, the European Union has stood firmly by Ukraine's side, and we are engaged on all fronts to achieve a just and lasting peace in Ukraine. A new sanctions package is on the table, targeting oil revenues, banks, crypto and shadow fleet.

We are also paving the way for Ukraine's membership of the European Union. Ukraine has been delivering on the EU accession-related reforms and the Commission has recognized this. Now it's the European Union turn to deliver because enlargement is a merit-based process and because enlargement will make Europe stronger. Finally, on financing, European leaders had today a first discussion on how to mobilize further funds for Ukraine.

And the message is clear. Russia has to understand that Ukraine's partners, including its European partners, have the will and the means to continue supporting it until a just and lasting peace is achieved. So, this is what this informal meeting was today to prepare decisions for the security of our continent, decisions on the Europe of defense and decisions to strengthen support for Ukraine. In two weeks the European Council will meet again in three weeks, and that will be decision time. Thank you, dear Mette, to offer us this opportunity in this informal council to prepare our next decisions. Thank you.

Statsminister Mette Frederiksen: Thank you, António. And we have had a substantial and long meeting today here in Copenhagen. And we meet at a time where Russia have intensified their attacks in Ukraine, where we have seen Russian airspace violations and unwanted drone activity in several European countries. They are threatening us and they are testing us and they will not stop. So, what is our next steps? First of all, we have to step up our military and financial support for Ukraine. We talk a lot about security guarantees to Ukraine, but in fact, it is the other way around. Ukraine is today Europe's security guarantee. Our support to Ukraine is a direct investment in our own security.

And therefore, we have to deliver long-term financing of Ukraine's armed forces. Ursula, you have presented a model that will frontload future war reparations by Russia to Ukraine. I strongly support the idea. And to me, it is only fair that Russia pays for its violation and destruction.

As presidency, we will work actively to take this idea forward. We all, except one, also reaffirmed our backing for Ukraine's EU accession process. Reforms, as you just said, Antonio, has been implemented in Ukraine despite very difficult circumstances.

And now it is up to us to deliver. Secondly, Europe must be able to defend itself. We have to rearm Europe. And right now, we see a large surge in defense investments across our continent. It is good. Billions of euros have been committed already, but it is not enough. So, achieving the 2030 target is

 Danish priority. We have been pushing for an ambitious approach. And today, I would say there was a broad support for the Commission's Scoping Paper for a 2030 roadmap. Now we have to translate it into concrete action and milestones before our next meetings in a few weeks from now. We have also discussed this idea about flagships. We need to strengthen our production of drones, of anti-drone capabilities. And this includes building up a European network of anti-drones measures that can detect and, of course, also neutralize intrusion from outside. So, we have to create a European ecosystem that will enable Europe to develop cutting-edge drone solutions, inspired by what they are doing in Ukraine already. Thirdly, while strengthening Ukraine and Europe, we have to weaken Russia. And therefore, we already now are looking into the next sanction package, targeting the financing of Russia's war machine. And of course, we will work with this as presidency as well. Everybody knows now what is at stake.

I think our main goal is simply to building a Europe so strong that war not will be an option. And this is our main task in these weeks and months and unfortunately also years. And I think we have had good discussions today and now we are ready to take the next steps. And let me pass the floor to you, Ursula.

Præsident Ursula von der Leyen:  Thank you so much, Mette. And first of all, let me thank you for being such a wonderful host here in the beautiful city of Copenhagen. We really enjoy it. And I want to express my solidarity with the member states whose airspace has been violated. Poland, Romania, Estonia, and of course, most recently, Denmark. These violations are part of hybrid war tactics. And these are threats that demand a strong and determined reaction and answer from Europe, because every European citizen and every square centimeter in Europe has to be safe.

So, we must provide the strongest of deterrence at scale and at speed. And that was the focus of our discussions today. There is a clear sense of urgency because preserving peace has always been a core task of the European Union. The good news is that the wheels are already in motion. We have an investment surge in our common defense that is on its way. You know, the safe instrument, it is successful. It's 150 billion euros and it's a case in point, oversubscribed.

Now we need a precise pan-European plan, how to fill the capability gaps and how to move forward. And indeed, this is the intention of the scoping paper we discussed today. Let me highlight a few points out of the scoping paper. The first is on capabilities. Every member state has one single set of forces. And this single set of forces is assigned to different missions, perhaps a NATO mission or an EU mission or a mission for the United Nations, sometimes coalition of the willing. But from my words, you understand already that of utmost importance is that these armed forces are interoperable, that the capabilities are interoperable. Otherwise you cannot send in the different missions, the different types of troops. And therefore, in close cooperation with NATO, we are working here on interoperability of capabilities that we want to have. Our roadmap till 2030 will define not only the common objectives, very important, but also very concrete milestones because it is a matter of time and only what gets measured gets done.

Then there was a point that we have discussed for each critical capability to create so-called capability coalitions with the need nation so that we can move forward faster at the rates right scale and with the necessary speed. A second point was the discussion on the flagships.

And indeed, here I want to highlight the Eastern flank watch. This project aims to counter the full spectrum of threats at our eastern borders. A core element of these will be the so-called drone wall. It is basically an anti-drone system that is able to do swift detection, interception and of course, if necessary, neutralization.

Here we draw a lot on Ukraine's expertise, of course, and therefore we must move forward rapidly together with Ukraine and NATO. The third element I want to highlight is the defense industrial readiness that we need. We need a ramped up, resilient and innovative European defense industry.

We have started our defense omnibus to simplify the procedures, to have more speed in the whole process. And this defense industry needs a strong ecosystem that is composed not only of industry, of course, but also tech startups. There was a broad discussion about the importance of startups and academia. All of them are essential. Because it's so important to have such an ecosystem. We propose to establish new tech alliances, which we then connect, where we then connect tech innovators with the defense users. So, this is in a nutshell, it's much more, some key elements of the scoping paper. And in two weeks, we will then present the full version to the European Council. My final point is on Ukraine. It's now three years and seven months since Russia's full-scale invasion, and Ukraine continues to fiercely resist. At the same time, we see that Russia is under increasing economic pressure. Our sanctions are working. I give you some figures. If you look at the interest rates in Russia, they are at 17 percent. The inflation is well above 10 percent.

 At least 40 percent of the Russian budget is spent on defense this year. And if you look at Russia's GDP in the year 2024, it was 4.3%. It is projected to slow down to 0.9%. So, this is the time to further increase the pressure on Russia. And to this end, we proposed a new approach of sanctions. We do not approach the sanctions anymore in incremental steps, but we present much more robust measures on energy, on financial services, and on trade.

And that is the 19th package of sanctions that is on the table right now. Second, we need to provide military assistance to Ukraine, because if we continue to believe that Ukraine is our first line of defense and this is the case then we need to step up our military assistance to

Ukraine concretely we have agreed with Ukraine that a total of 2 billion euros will be spent on drones this allows Ukraine to scale up its drone capabilities capacities and it will allow the European union to benefit from this technology, for a more structural solution, for military support, more is necessary. And this is the reason why we have put forward the idea of the reparations loan. This reparations loan is based on the immobilized Russian assets. The loan would not be dispersed in one go, but in tranches, and tranches that are attached where conditions are attached.

We will strengthen our own defense industry by that, by ensuring that part of the loan is used for procurement in Europe and with Europe. And very importantly is that there is no seizing of the assets. The Russian claim stays a Russian claim.

Ukraine gets these loans and Ukraine has to repay the loans if Russia is paying reparations, because the perpetrator must be held responsible. Thank you.

Journalist (TV2): I have a question first for you, Prime Minister, and then I would like to ask you also a question, Madam President. First, Mette Frederiksen, today French authorities have boarded a Russian vessel regarded to be part of the Shadow Fleet. There is a suspicion of this vessel having a direct connection with these airspace drone incursions of Danish airspace. So, my first question for you is, can you confirm this connection? I understand that there is an investigation launched. Two arrests have been made on this ship. Can you confirm this connection first? And also, is this investigation happening on a request from the Danish authorities? That's for you. And then for you, Madam President, the reparations loan for Ukraine, is no secret that it's a very sensitive debate. There are some countries very skeptical, Belgium, for example, where these funds are hosted. Has Belgium and other countries gotten the solidarity that they have been asking for in terms of making this a possibility? Is there unanimity on this measure to go down this path? Thank you.

Statsminister Mette Frederiksen: So, thank you for this question. I cannot comment on any specific investigations. I can say in more general terms that we are facing a lot of problems with the shadow fleet. And that has been the case, especially in the Baltic Sea for quite a long time. And we are working very closely together to battle this situation.

But when it comes to specific investigations, I have no comments.

Præsident Ursula von der Leyen: Yeah, I had the opportunity today to present the Commission's proposal, and we had a very good first discussion. It's the start of a discussion. Of course, we have to flesh out the whole proposal much more, but I was glad to see leaders' interest in the concept. So now we will intensify the discussions. I want to thank explicitly Friedrich Merz, who was immediately backing this proposal, also by an op-ed that he wrote, and he was very early supporting this proposal. Now, what Belgium is concerned, it's absolutely clear that Belgium cannot be the one who is the only member state that is carrying the risk, but the risks have to be put on broader shoulders.

Journalist (Reuters): I wanted to come to the issue of the drone wall. I noticed President Costa, President von der Leyen, you both used that term, but Prime Minister Fredrickson didn't. And we've heard from some leaders today that they agree with the general idea that Europe needs to do more to counter drones, but they don't always agree with the focus on the eastern flank. And in particular, we've seen in Denmark recently, obviously, that drones can cause big problems far from the eastern flank and without having crossed the EU's eastern borders. So, do you see any need to rethink either the concept or the name of this plan, perhaps to give it a more pan-European element, or will it stay as it is?

And perhaps, Prime Minister Frederiksen, you can explain why you didn't use the term drone wall.

Statsminister Mette Frederiksen: I don't really care about the name as long as it works. So, you cannot explain anything about me using the word or not. We have had a long discussion about it today. And actually, in substance, it was a very interesting discussion because everybody knows now that the drones have changed the whole idea of a war. And the effect of drones is changing everything. And we see it every day now in Ukraine. In Denmark, we have been working closely together with the Ukrainians on this question. Now we have tried it ourselves last week.

We totally agree cross-border within the European Union that we need to invest much more in drone technology, in countering drones, as you said, but also in new technologies and innovation. So, we totally agree on that. But we also know that the technology is changing so rapidly that we cannot have one idea and believe that that will solve all our problems.

So, I like the idea of a drone wall, but we have to be very frank to the Europeans that no matter what kind of capabilities we are able to buy, to innovate, to build up, there will still be drones coming into Europe. So, what we have talked about today is building up a European ecosystem like the ones we have in Ukraine. By the way, I think it is extremely important that we integrate Ukraine in all our work from the very beginning, because they are the experts. And so, building up a European ecosystem is the most important thing. Of course, it has to focus on the eastern flank, because the eastern flank is closest to Russia. But at the same time, we have this, I think, general approach that security is, first of all, a question about Russia, unfortunately. But it's also a question about migration. It's also a question about climate change. It's also a question about any other threats against our society. So, I don't really think there is a conflict between East or West on this issue. It has to be useful in many different areas. But of course, it has to be linked to the eastern flank.

Præsident Ursula von der Leyen: Yeah, the nature of warfare has completely changed. That is what we have seen in the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Partially per night, the Ukrainians are intercepting 800 drones. So, this gives us an idea how enormous the threat is and they can come from anywhere.

 So, the original idea came from Ukraine and we are learning from Ukraine. Of course, at the moment being in the debate, the first priority for building up an anti-drone system is the eastern flank, because it's clear that these are the member states that are acutely the most exposed.

But indeed, Mette, as you said, that the vision is much, much broader and it has to have the 360-degree approach. So, this anti-drone system is conceived as a shield for our entire continent. This would also include, for example, the southern flank.

It is designed to address a wide spectrum. You mentioned weaponized migration, but also hybrid operations, drone incursions, as we have seen, but also control of the Russian shadow fleets, for example, or even the risk of armed aggression when you see the amassing of troops. So, there can be a wide spectrum in the anti-drone system and the use of drones or anti-drones’ mechanism. In general, the drone wall will strengthen the borders on land, at sea and in the air, and thus not only protect the frontline state, but will contribute to the security of our whole European Union.

Formand António Costa: I just want to allow that in the European Council it was very clear that we need to have a 360 degrees approach and look at our external borders, as our common borders. In the eastern, in the north, in the south, in the west. And of course, for everybody, now the main threat we are facing now comes from Russia, and especially on the eastern flank. That's the reason that we are looking for the eastern flank as a priority. And, of course, we can discuss what is the best trademark for this idea, but I recall that when in March we defined our nine main priorities on capabilities, one of them was drone and anti-drone systems. Then, now, it's a matter of trademark.

Journalist (ANSA): You mentioned that there is, President Costa, first question is for you. You mentioned that there is the appetite from the Council to have a stronger role of the minister of defense to supervise, so to say, or to the protect the milestones that are required, that have to be met of the future on this.

Is this a way for the member states to underline that the competence of defense is of the member states and they want to emphasize this? And secondly, for all of you, while we speak in the Eastern Mediterranean, the so-called flotilla that has sailed to raise the awareness of what is happening to Gaza and to bring help, aid there is being boarded by the Israeli Coast Guard or IDF. And I want to ask you if you think that this is a legitimate quest to raise awareness on what is happening to Gaza and the response from Israel is proportionate. Thank you.

Formand António Costa: As you know, the treaties said clearly that defense is the competence for the member states. But we learned that to be effective on our own defense, we need to work together. And that's why part of 23 member states are allies in NATO, but we are all of us allies in the European Union. And we need to work very closely with the European Commission, because the European Commission could help all the member states in different ways. First of all, on regulation, on simplification. Secondly, boosting our innovation capacity and also our defense industry.

Creating important tools to fund our investment on defense is what the Commission has done when proposed and presented SAFE 150 billion euros. That's very important to support all member states. When the European Commission allow member states to use the escape clause to have more fiscal space to increase their finance on the defense expensive and also now when the commission are presenting presented some months ago the white paper on defense now this scoping paper to in two weeks the roadmap on preparedness then we need to work very close to the European commission and this is clear across all the member all the members.

And now we have a very important task force, leading by Commission Kubilius, joining the European Commission, the European Defense Agency, the Council, to work all together with the same purpose, to build the Europe of Defense. And of course, in the Europe of Defense, the Commission will take more and more responsibilities, and of course, we need to take more and more political control on our decisions. And now our representative is convening more often the Council of Ministers of Defense, but not as an autonomous formation of the Council.

 It's a junior meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs Council. And what we need now is to give more autonomy, because we need to engage more and more our defense ministers at European level and for this it's very important that the representative lead not only this meeting of foreign affairs ministers but also this council of ministers of defense.

During the council I don't receive any information, then I can't comment at this moment.

Journalist (DR): Shouldn't the EU up its ambitions on defense? The re-armed Europe that's five years away, you talk about the Europe of Defense that's five years away. Imagine what in your words Madam Prime Minister a capable foe could do within five years can you three make certain that the European citizens would be kept safe while these decisions take time. Thank you.

Præsident Ursula von der Leyen: So, 2030 does not mean that we only look at 2030 we start right now. I give you a good example the SAFE instrument we launched it was February or March. We have it in place. It's 150 billion euros. We have 19 member states that subscribed. Now we are working with them on the national plans, and we can disperse the first tranches to the member states, join procurement at the beginning of next year. So that's in 10 months, the instrument is up and running. And that shows that we've understood the urgency. And it is working exactly right now.

Of course, there are other capabilities that will take more time without any question. And of course, we will learn also from the development of the war in Ukraine, what is of utmost priority and immediate necessary and what can take more time. But that we set the goal of 2030 does not mean that we do not immediately start now. But we have also changed in these three years completely. So, the support for Ukraine, if you look at Ukraine three years ago, zero defense industry. Now they have the most modern, most ingenious defense industry you can think of. The drone production is the cheapest, the fastest, and the most intelligent worldwide. So, there's an enormous development that we've seen.

Also, on our side, just imagine the sum of 800 billion euros is now available for member states up to 2030. So, in the next four years, beginning now, to invest in defense, unthinkable four years ago.