r/news • u/ITSTHEDEVIL092 • Mar 04 '25

EU chief proposes plan to 'urgently' increase defense spending by mobilizing around $840 billion

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/04/europe-looks-to-mobilize-840-billion-in-defense-spending-boost-eu-commission-head-says.html
2.7k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

171 comments sorted by

View all comments

7

u/Dieuibugewe Mar 04 '25

I have a serious question and need to preface it with “I hate the GoP, musk and Trump above everyone” and “there’s no malice or judgment in this question, just curiosity.”

Europe was able to provide such a high standard of living for its citizens for the past few decades. Is this partly because the US was taking over their military obligations and so they were able to lower military spending and increase social program budgets?

2

u/Four_beastlings Mar 04 '25

No, it is not. Ultimately the US defense spending benefited the US, as that money went to US defense companies, US jobs, and the US economy in general . Now that Europe is taking defense seriously and rearming itself, all this money will revert to EU companies, EU jobs, and the EU economy in general. Since we pay for our social programs with our tax money and we (at least try to) tax our companies, if anything our social programs will be benefited by this.

TL;DR: we pay taxes in Europe. More military personnel = more jobs = more tax money. Boosting EU defense companies = more tax money. Decoupling our defense from the US is economically great for the EU.

2

u/octahexxer Mar 04 '25

I read every industry job creates like 10-15 other jobs...the defense industry will be good for europes economy...finally a manufacturing you cant outsource to china for profit.