MADRID, April 21. /TASS/. The European Commission’s proposal to rearm the European Union could trigger Europe’s fragmentation, Giuseppe Conte, former Italian prime minister and leader of the Five Star Movement, said.
"It’s not a joint European defense project that we would support," he told Spain’s El Pais newspaper in an interview. "The rearmament plan will not only fail to benefit Europe but will also contribute to its disintegration," the politician added. "Some countries will increase their GDP by producing missiles and tanks, while others will raise the national debt level," Conte said. According to him, "in order to justify this plan, they are promoting the idea that Russia wants to invade Europe."
Conte believes that the European public is being misled by promises of more security and efforts to arm every country, even though the military approach pursued until recently has not succeeded. "I think the best way to guarantee the well-being of our people is to maintain dialogue, which is very difficult, and we cannot rely only on [US President Donald] Trump," the ex-Italian premier stressed. "We need to sit at the [negotiating] table and develop the horizon of peace without nurturing a spiral leading to war," he concluded.
On March 4, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that she had presented an €800 billion rearmament plan to EU leaders. The initiative suggests that European Union countries borrow up to €150 billion for defense. The European Commission would like to borrow from capital markets to lend to member states for the joint procurement of weapons in Europe. Brussels’ plan is to spend some of the money on the production of weapons for Ukraine.