BRUSSELS, June 23. /TASS/. The strategic goal of the European Union is to spend 7 trillion euros on weapons production over the next decade to overtake Russia in terms of weapons and military power, European Commissioner for Defense and Space Andrius Kubilius told a military conference.

According to him, the European Union needs "to outproduce, outinnovate, outgun Russia."

"Member States will spend around 7 trillion euro during next 10 years, according to their pledges given to NATO (to increase their military spending to 5% of GDP - TASS)," he continued.

"We need to pay the price for peace, to avoid the cost of war."

He also called for Ukraine's full integration into the emerging European defense union, the EU military market, and the integration of the European military industry and Ukrainian production into a single military complex.

The European Commissioner appealed to the European armies and industry to abandon the production of "'haute couture' defense products" that are expensive to make, and hard to scale up. Instead, he suggested focusing on creating "weapons that need rapid production, rapid innovation, rapid repairs," citing the use of drones in the conflict in Ukraine as an example.