Tusk calls on Europe to "arm itself to survive"

Tusk calls on Europe to “arm itself to survive”

Europe “must arm itself” if it wants to survive. This is the warning launched by Donald Tusk, the prime minister of Poland, the country that holds the rotating presidency of the European Union. The Polish popular urged the bloc’s member states to take seriously Donald Trump’s call to increase defense spending to 5 percent of GDP, which Warsaw is already doing. The former communist country will spend 4.7 percent this year, a level never reached in NATO.

“If Europe wants to survive, it must arm itself,” said Tusk speaking at the European Parliament plenary where he presented the priorities of his presidency. “We are at a time when Europe cannot afford to cut back on security,” he said. And the theme will be at the center of his presidency, as underlined by the slogan chosen for the semester: Security Europe.

“Raise your heads, Europeans”

“I am not a militarist,” said the popular Pole, recalling that in Europe “we have suffered a lot” because of the war, “and perhaps that is why we understand so well that to prevent history from repeating itself, we must be armed, we must be strong and we must be determined, also in terms of defense capabilities.”

“Raise your heads, Europeans,” he thundered in response to the concerns raised by Donald Trump’s return to power in the United States: “Europe was, is and will always be great.” “Ask not what the United States can do for your security, ask what we can do for our security”, he paraphrased a famous phrase by former US president John F. Kennedy.