Former Finnish president explores how to make Europe war- and crisis-ready

BRUSSELS (CN) — Europe needs to ramp up its civilian and defense preparedness to face new threats, former Finnish President Sauli Niinistö outlined Wednesday in a landmark report requested by the European Commission.

The 165-page report, covers both conventional armed defense as well as preparedness for cyber and hybrid threats as well as, for example, climate change.

"Threats don't stop at our borders; they cascade between the interconnected sectors of our economy," Niinistö said, adding that "if we are not doing all we can for our own security, we cannot expect others to do it for us."

“The currently available funding from the EU budget for defense-related expenditures is below what is needed in light of the strategic context ... this is an important signal to the US and other key partners,” the report said.

Those comments come just a week ahead of the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5, which could see a return of former Republican president Donald Trump to the White House, a scenario that has spooked European capitals since he left office.

The report, titled "Safer Together, Strengthening Europe's Civilian and Military Preparedness and Readiness," stated that the European Union would need to send a signal that it is willing to invest in defense and its own security and crisis preparedness, which, according to Niinistö, should amount to around 20% of its budget, currently worth around 1 trillion euros over seven years.

However, Europeans are far from reaching such a target.

A European Commission-proposed 1.5 billion-euro European Defense Industrial Program in March earlier this year is expected to suffer from insufficient funding, for example.

At the same time, the report stated that Russia’s war on Ukraine has exposed significant gaps in Europe's military and defense capabilities, amounting to potentially some 500 billion euros over the next decade to remain competitive with global actors such as the U.S. or China.   

"Member states should strengthen their cooperation on European defense, jointly investing more to close long-standing gaps in our military and defense industrial readiness," the report stated.

Niinistö pointed out that despite an increase in EU member states' defense budgets over the course of last year, fewer than 20% of investments in defense programs were made in a collaborative manner, and 82% of defense funding and procurement has been allocated nationally.   

Deterrence talk

Niinistö in his report dedicated a significant part to measures for deterring hybrid warfare, such as cyberattacks or sabotage of critical infrastructure.

One approach would be through "deterrence by denial," which would foresee making it "as difficult as possible for hostile intelligence services to operate in the EU."

According to his recommendation, EU countries should share information with each other about "vulnerabilities that pose a broader threat within the Union" and the bloc should establish an "anti-sabotage network."

In a second approach of "deterrence by punishment," the bloc would identify adversaries' "vulnerabilities and exposures to EU countermeasures" so it can hit back or 'name and shame' potential perpetrators of hybrid attacks.

The latter would be a controversial step, as some EU member states fear it would mean they would actually need to hit back, which would require unanimity for the decisionmaking. It could also potentially cause more retaliation from the perpetrators, other EU member states fear.

EU intelligence

On a practical level, the report includes plans for increased intelligence cooperation, which so far has run into hurdles of individual EU member states jealously guarding the output of their national spy agencies.

Niinistö called to “strengthen EU intelligence structures step-by-step towards a fully-fledged EU service for intelligence cooperation”, which would make it possible “to coordinate specific counter-espionage tasks.”  

“We should build on improving the flow of information gathering and intelligence ... it’s in the interest of all of us,” European Council President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters in Brussels.

Niinistö, however, acknowledged that “many of the proposals made in this report will no doubt be difficult to reach consensus on.”