At an extremely critical juncture, at a time when Europe is called upon to make immediate and effective decisions on common defence, while peace negotiations are underway on the war front in Ukraine, Kyriakos Mitsotakisis in Brussels – in a break from the internal political wrangling over the impeachment motion against the government – and will participate in turn in the informal Summit of the ELC and immediately afterwards in the informal summit that will precede the decisions of the regular summit taking place on March 20 and 21.

Against the backdrop of the €800 billion REARM Europe package announced by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen the day before yesterday, Mitsotakis believes that Europe is taking an important step towards strengthening the collective European security policy. In a recent article in the Financial Times, the Prime Minister proposed the creation of a new 100 billion euro financial instrument that could function as a Defence Fund.

Of course, the government believes that “the devil is in the details” as always, for example against the backdrop of the activation of the famous escape clause for defence spending. The Commission’s initial proposal is that this possibility should apply to those EU member states that do not reach the 2% bar set by NATO for defence spending. The view of Greece is that this provision should apply to all member states, given that Greece spends almost 3.5% of its GDP on defence spending.

It should be noted that Mitsotakis, has submitted for approval by the European People’s Party summit to be held shortly before the EU summit, a declaration on the urgent need to strengthen European defence and increase its funding as the foundation of European strategic autonomy.

The new German Chancellor – not yet in office – will also participate in this summit, a few days after announcements in his country to overcome the “debt brake” in order to increase defence spending.

Solution for Ukraine with the US

Also on the agenda, of course, will be developments in Ukraine, with the government watching with discomfort the informal meetings held in recent days that are causing “rifts” in the internal unity of the E.U. Mitsotakis will insist that the Union must speak with a united voice on such important issues and to this end the format of the informal summits is not helpful, but instead exacerbates the image of a divided Europe.

In the aftermath and of his phone call the day before yesterday with Volodymyr Zelensky, Mitsotakis is expected to stress in his remarks that Europe must continue to talk with the US to bridge differences in favor of a lasting peace in Ukraine, with US support for security guarantees for the day after. And he will also insist that it is important to support Ukraine and strengthen its defense capabilities so that it has a credible deterrent to be able to defend its freedom.