European NATO allies should have a “clear roadmap” spelling out how any U.S. pullout from the continent would work, Finnish Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen told POLITICO.
“We need to have some sort of joint plan with Americans about a roadmap if the Americans are shifting the balance in the Pacific area in conventional defense capabilities,” he said in a phone interview following an informal meeting of EU defense ministers in Warsaw.
He called for a “clear roadmap” from Washington “so that there will be no kind of window of opportunity for Russia to try something,” and said that U.S plans should coordinate with EU initiatives to boost the bloc’s defense capacity.
Häkkänen’s comments echo those of German Defense Boris Pistorius, who last month asked his U.S. counterpart Pete Hegseth to “develop a roadmap to avoid gaps in capabilities, organize burden sharing progressively, to know who does what” in case the U.S shifts forces from Europe to the Indo-Pacific.
Pistorius said he got no answer from either the White House or the Pentagon.
European countries are scrambling to recalibrate the continent’s defenses as the administration of Donald Trump wages economic war against the EU, warms ties with Russia, warns it may not defend NATO allies it feels underspend on defense, and threatens to invade Greenland.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio — in Brussels for a meeting of NATO foreign ministers — dismissed worries about America’s commitment to the alliance as “hysteria.”
At the same meeting, NATO chief Mark Rutte argued there are “no surprises” within the alliance and that any U.S. pivot toward Asia would be done “in a very coordinated manner.”
The Finnish minister was sympathetic to U.S. arguments about the need to shift to Asia. “The message I get from the Americans, and from the Pentagon side, is that we need to understand their pressure [from] China’s military buildup in the Indo-Pacific area.”
But any U.S. pullback from Europe poses dangers for the continent, and especially for countries close to Russia, Häkkänen warned.
“Europe is too weak without U.S capabilities. It must be complemented with European capabilities,” said the minister, whose country shares a 1,340-kilometer border with Russia and whose defense forces are able to call on almost a million reservists and a whole-of-society security model of crisis preparedness. Finland joined NATO two years ago as a consequence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The EU is playing a larger role in defense to deter the threat from Russia, an effort spurred by growing worries about the reliability of the alliance with the U.S.
Häkkänen said that European Commission plans that could potentially unleash €800 billion in military spending by relaxing national fiscal rules and by offering €150 billion in defense loans, in order to boost the bloc’s defenses by 2030, are “on the right track.”
EU leaders are expected to take a position on the Commission proposals in June.
“Americans want to see clear decisions from European countries,” he said.
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