European security policy

NATO responds after attack: “Taken very seriously”

NATO is working around the clock to counter Russian sabotage. This is what Secretary General Mark Rutte says after a plane carrying EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was subjected to a jamming attack, the AP news agency reports.

“This is taken very seriously,” he says at a press conference in Luxembourg.

The jamming attack knocked out the GPS system on the plane as it was about to land in Bulgaria. von der Leyen has not commented on the incident. Bulgarian authorities have stated that the incident will not be investigated. They justify the decision by saying that “such things happen every day”.

Europe is getting ready – record investments in defense

Total European defense spending is expected to reach a record high of 381 billion euros this year, writes AFP. Of these, around 130 billion are investments in, for example, new weapons systems.

19 of 27 EU countries have also chosen to apply for money from the EU's new defense fund of 150 billion euros, which enables cheap loans for defense investments.

The investments have been driven by NATO's new goal that member countries should spend 5 percent of GDP on defense, 3.5 percent should be pure defense investments and 1.5 percent should be made up of peripheral areas such as infrastructure and cyber defense.

However, to fully achieve that goal, total spending would need to amount to 630 billion euros a year.