Why Sweden wants the EU’s defence revamp to get help from its friends

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Good morning. News to start: Brussels wants to fast-track almost all the profits earned on immobilised Russian assets to assist Ukraine, potentially through weapons supplies, in a plan that, if approved by member states, could begin paying out within a few months.

Today, we have a European prime minister special: Sweden’s premier tells me that the EU’s new defence industry strategy must have a place for non-EU arms companies, and Greece’s leader calls for more work permits in exchange for curbs on irregular migrants.

Open arms

The European Commission’s new defence strategy must involve third countries, Sweden’s prime minister has said, in the face of opposition from countries such as France that prefer an EU-only approach.

Context: European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen unveiled a proposal last week that envisaged Brussels taking a much larger role in co-ordinating defence purchases, incentivising arms manufacturing and subsidising military contracts to beef up the continent’s defence industry.

“We like the idea of closer co-operation [with third countries], not only because we have a military industry that could actually benefit from broader, more open markets, but because that’s our normal approach to trade, to remove barriers and stuff like that,” Ulf Kristersson told the Financial Times in an interview where he also said he was ready to militarily reinforce the vulnerable Baltic island of Gotland.

“We have been concerned about tendencies to say, well, it needs to be European in the sense that the ownership must be European. We have never been prejudiced, we work with the Americans and with British companies. But so do other countries as well,” he added.

Paris has led calls for the strategy to benefit only EU companies or manufacturing sites. But many countries have defence companies that are partly owned by non-EU shareholders, or have production lines outside the bloc.

“When I did speak to Ursula [von der Leyen] just a few weeks ago about this specifically, we really underlined the need to be open, you know, to increase the European production capacity . . . but be open in co-operation with other countries as well,” Kristersson said.

The inclusive versus exclusive debate is just one source of division between member states over the proposal, alongside arguments on whether capitals should contribute more money to fund it, and how much power Brussels will acquire over purchasing decisions.

“I think that, what Ukraine has taught us is the value of European countries sticking together,” said Kristersson. “Both within the framework of EU, and transatlantic and other co-operation.”

Chart du jour: Internal pushback

French President Emmanuel Macron recently made some out-there comments on putting boots on the ground in Ukraine. But polls show that 79 per cent of the public would oppose French troops fighting in Ukraine.

Door policy

The EU should offer its poorer neighbours more work permits for their citizens in return for curbing irregular migration, Greece’s prime minister told Andy Bounds.

“We need a big fence and a big door,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis said.

Context: The number of people reaching Europe through irregular channels rose an annual 50 per cent last year, when the International Organization for Migration recorded some 288,000 arrivals, providing fodder to nationalist parties ahead of June’s European parliament elections.

Mitsotakis believes he has a formula to regain control: working together with neighbouring countries such as Egypt to prevent people from crossing the Mediterranean. In return, “We need to be open to legal pathways to migration, in order to allow especially the citizens of those countries . . . to come to Europe to have a right to a better life,” Mitsotakis said.

Greece has signed an agreement on labour mobility with Egypt, and plans to work with other countries to attract much-needed workers, as well as to regularise people already in the country.

“We are not opposed to migration in principle,” Greek migration minister Dimitrios Kairidis told the FT.

The EU is preparing a wider aid package for Cairo including migration measures, similar to a deal signed with Tunisia last year, which has had mixed results. Mitsotakis is scheduled to travel to Cairo on Sunday together with commission president Ursula von der Leyen, and his Italian and Belgian counterparts Giorgia Meloni and Alexander De Croo.

The Greek premier is a member of the European People’s party, which has just proposed processing asylum claims in “safe” third countries and making successful asylum seekers stay there, a policy no European country has yet carried out successfully.

Mitsotakis said it was “worth trying” but declined to name any countries that could qualify for such a scheme.

He said Greece had got a grip on migration, with better reception facilities on its islands. Greece has repeatedly been accused of illegally expelling people without hearing their asylum claims and breaching human rights in its reception centres.

What to watch today

1. European Commission presents climate risk assessment.

2. EU finance ministers meet.

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