Macron: EU needs ‘hundreds of billions’ in defense spending as US pivots away

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday urged EU member states to agree on “massive, common funding” to unlock investments of hundreds of billions of euros for European defense and security.

“We will give a mandate to the European Commission to define our capacity needs for a common defense,” Macron said in an interview published in several French newspapers on Sunday. “This massive funding probably reaches hundreds of billions of euros,” he said.

His comments come ahead of a special EU summit set for Thursday that will be focused on defense.

The French president has long argued that Europe needs more strategic autonomy, less dependency on the U.S. and more investments in its own industrial defense base. Macron said on Sunday that the need to make the shift had become even more urgent as the U.S. pivots away from Europe.

“It’s quarter to the midnight,” Macron said. “As there are doubts over the support of the Americans towards Europe over time, we need to mobilize hundreds of billions of euros. It is Europe’s strategic wake-up moment,” the French daily Le Parisien quoted him as saying.

With the American administration adopting a more conciliatory approach to Russia, and signaling it wants to disengage from Europe, many EU member states, including countries historically close to the U.S., are seeking to diversify their military ties amid fears NATO may become defunct.

Germany’s likely next chancellor Friedrich Merz has said it was “his absolute priority” to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible and “achieve independence from the USA.”

On Sunday, European and Canadian leaders are meeting in London to discuss Ukraine, as several countries, including France, the U.K. and Italy, signal their willingness to work as mediators between the U.S. and Ukraine as the relationship sours.

But it’s on Thursday that the discussions on boosting European defense will get under way in earnest, with discussions expected on a new defense spending tool and other measures including loosening fiscal rules and incentives to get banks to lend for defense projects.

“It’ll take five years, 10 years” to really boost European defense, Macron said in the interview. “But it doesn’t matter, because I believe today is the strategic wake-up moment,” he said.

The French president also indicated he was willing to start talks on sharing France’s nuclear umbrella with European neighbors.

“We have a shield, and they don’t. And they can no longer rely on the American nuclear deterrence,” he said. “We need a strategic conversation with those who don’t have it; and it would make France stronger,” he added.