EU, US must agree on schedule for reducing American forces in Europe – Kubilius

VILNIUS - The European Union and the US must agree on a rational schedule for reducing the presence of American troops in Europe, European Commissioner for Defense and Space Andrius Kubilius says.

"It is very important for us to reach a rational agreement with our transatlantic partners, the Americans, on the schedule for reducing their forces in Europe so that we can have a clear plan for replacing them," Kubilius told Lithuania's public radio LRT on Friday.

According to him, it is not yet known from which countries the Americans intend to withdraw and and how many troops will leave.

The US national defense strategy announced last week identifies the Indo-Pacific region and the Western Hemisphere as priorities, Kubilius pointed out. Meanwhile, in other regions, the Americans are asking countries or organizations such as the EU to take responsibility for conventional defense themselves.

"In other words, America maintains a nuclear umbrella, which is very important to us, but they expect us to develop all the other capabilities needed to replace those capabilities that America currently maintains in Europe," Kubilius said.

"And these are quite significant capabilities: both in terms of armaments and in terms of so-called strategic enablers – space reconnaissance and so on – plus about 100,000 troops that they maintain in Europe," the European commissioner pointed out.

He has proposed the idea of the EU creating a joint military force that would eventually replace US troops in Europe.

As reported by BNS, there are over 1,000 US troops in Lithuania and they have been rotating since the spring of 2014, and heavy battalions have been deployed in the country since 2019.

Following Washington's review of the presence of American troop presence in Europe, Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene said last December that Lithuania was not facing a reduction in the number of US troops deployed in the country. President Gitanas Nauseda said at the time that he had received a letter from US President Donald Trump, giving him reason to believe that American attention to Lithuania would remain.

Speaking with LRT, Kubilius also emphasized that NATO members' commitment to allocate 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to defense by 2035, with 3.5 percent of that going to core defense needs, would mean almost 7 trillion euros in defense investment by EU countries.

"What's really important for us is to see and understand the scale of this. If countries fulfill this commitment over the next ten years, EU countries will invest nearly 7 trillion euros in defense. That is a lot of money. Of course, this includes salaries and pensions, but about half could be allocated to weapons," Kubilius said.

According to the European commissioner, Russia currently spends about percent of what the EU spends on war in terms of purchasing power. In this respect, Russia's investment in war is similar to the total defense spending of the bloc.