Europe needs a joint approach to military equipment procurement, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on Wednesday. He stressed that the continent cannot afford to waste time on unnecessary red tape, News.bg reports.
Pistorius made the comments after a meeting of defense ministers from Britain, France, Italy and Poland in Paris aimed at strengthening European defense and providing security guarantees to Ukraine as Washington seeks rapprochement with Moscow.
"We want to deliver more, we want to deliver consistently and at the same time... we want to deregulate at the European level, but also in our nation states," Pistorius said. "Together we can buy more cheaply."
He expressed his belief that Europe cannot afford to be bogged down in bureaucratic procedures that could slow down the increase in defense spending. According to him, this could also have negative consequences for Germany's lagging economy.
"We don't have that time, it's unnecessary and expensive," he added.
European Union finance ministers this week began discussions on how to finance defense, offering loans to governments for joint defense projects.
French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu noted that about 15 countries had expressed interest in discussing a new security architecture for Ukraine, while British Defense Secretary John Healy said work on building a coalition to support Ukraine's security was accelerating.
France and Britain, as European nuclear powers, have been working closely in recent weeks to mobilize support for Ukraine in the context of the unpredictability of the US position.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov was invited to the talks on Wednesday, March 12, which took place at the former Val-de-Grâce military hospital in Paris, as EU and NATO representatives were also present.
The meetings come a day after 34 military chiefs from NATO countries, as well as Japan and Australia, met in Paris for rare talks that excluded their American counterparts.