The Hague, May 2025
Dear Commissioner Kubilius,
We, as Defence ministers, would like to commend you on the excellent White Paper for
European Defence and the call for
European Readiness in 2030.
War, aggression and other hostile acts have been affecting the European continent. The
only way to ensure peace and to decide on the EU’s own future is to have the readiness to
deter these actions. The Russian aggression against Ukraine increases and threats towards
the EU are growing. It is clear that these threats will persist in the foreseeable future,
considering that Russia has shifted to a war-time economy enabling a rapid scale-up of its
military capabilities and replenishment of its stocks. The European Council underlined, in
its conclusions of 6 March 2025, that “Russia’s
war of aggression against Ukraine and its
repercussions for European and global security in a changing environment constitute an
existential challenge for the European Union”.
The EU can do a lot to enhance Member States’ armed forces’ operational readiness as fast
as possible. The White Paper does this in terms of investment, industry, procurement,
research, innovation and more. In addition, the White Paper announced a Defence Omnibus
Simplification, to be presented in June.
We as Defence ministers strongly advocate for the Commission’s legal analysis and
proposals for solutions in the Omnibus Proposal to also address the
legal obstacles for
operational
readiness
of our armed forces and defence organisations, in addition to
addressing legal obstacles to the defence
industry.
At the moment, some EU legislation
forms a direct obstacle to the armed forces for fulfilling their tasks, while the Treaty
1
recognises the special position of national security and territorial integrity as essential state
functions of the Member States that the Union respects
2
. For any new EU legislation it
would be beneficial to introduce an impact assessment for readiness and defence as a
mandatory procedure.
1
2
Article 4(2) TEU
Ministrstvo za obrambo
arrest d.d. 28 januari 2021 r.o. 43. The EU Court has considered on this provision that, although not entirely
excluded from its application, EU law cannot be interpreted so as to prevent the armed forces from fulfilling their tasks and adversely
affect the essential functions of the State, namely the preservation of its territorial integrity and the safeguarding of national security