Preliminary opinion polls in western Europe suggest that most French and German people want defence spending either kept at its current level or even cut. Others want social welfare spending increased, posing very difficult questions for policymakers.
“Policymakers have found themselves in an enormous Gordian knot,” says James Kanagasooriam, chief researcher at the London-based company Focaldata, which carried out the survey.
Speaking on 3 March at an event organised by the Brussels-based Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), James Kanagasooriam presented the survey's findings for France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
The survey, conducted last week (in other words, just before Friday's clash between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office), suggests that in France 34% of those questioned want defence spending increased, in Germany – 47%, and in the United Kingdom – 46% of the people surveyed.
“If we look at the detail, even now, at a time of great instability, we have almost half the population wanting either to leave [defence spending] unchanged or to cut it,” the researcher added.
Views on NATO were also striking. France tops the list, with 30% of its people wanting to leave the US-led defence alliance, followed by 19% in Germany and 16% in the United Kingdom. The full results of the survey, including views in other EU countries, are due to be published next week.
These findings are likely to puzzle policymakers, given the repeated calls by European leaders to raise military defence spending, as well as the war in Ukraine and Washington's dramatic turn towards the Kremlin.
A study carried out last month by the think tank Bruegel says that member states must increase defence spending in the short term by at least 250 billion euros in order to deter Russia without US support. The researchers noted that Europe needs capacity equivalent to 300,000 US troops, or else must find ways to improve military coordination quickly.
According to European Defence Agency figures, around 1.6% of GDP was spent on defence in 2023. By comparison – roughly 26.8 percent went on social welfare that same year, the European Commission says. This question is likely to be one of the main topics of discussion at the EU leaders' Thursday summit.
The Commission, meanwhile, plans to publish a “White Paper on Defence” in mid-March. “The discussions at the European Council this week are likely to be taken into account in shaping the content of the White Paper,” said the European Commission's chief spokesperson, Paula Pinho.
In addition to defence spending, the European Council is likely also to discuss possible peace plans for Ukraine, following the breakdown of talks and the cancellation of the minerals deal with the administration of US President Trump.