A coalition of some 15 left wing European parties led by the former PM of Italy Giuseppe Conte (M5Stelle) opposes the Rearm Europe plans. Last Tuesday June 24, 2025, they signed a common declaration to reject increased military spending at the solemn end of a hybrid meeting in the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament in the Hague where at the same time the NATO summit was going to be held. Before that a series of eminent left (and extreme left) wing party figures from different countries (Belgium, Cyprus, France, Greece, Portugal, Spain,…) explained their positions in which one central claim came back: do not touch the European social model of social security and so much more that is at the heart of what Europe and the EU stands for.
Diplomacy is what we need most and foreall. A lot of historical references were made, especially to the years following WWII and one especially to the farewell speech in 1961 of the Republican (!) US President who was (and still is) also the only five-star rank general of the army who became President of the USA, Dwight.D.Eisenhower. As wikipedia informs us he gave In this speech the American nation a dire warning about what he described as a threat to democratic government.
He called it the military-industrial complex, a formidable union of defense contractors and of the armed forces. Is this reference to history at its place? Art3, §1 of the Maastricht Treaty on the European Union (TEU) states that the Union’s purpose is to promote peace, its values, and the well-being of its citizens. These values are further defined in Article 2 of the TEU as respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, and respect for human rights. Do the opponents to Rearm Europe have a point when they conclude the current leaders are putting the primacy of this aside to give it in for the primacy of defense and (instable) security?
Is Mr Conte objective when he says the plans are only about spending and have no clear vision? In the interview given to The Brussels Morning Newspaper he appears as a reasonable and rational , not hot-headed political leader and as an elder statesman ( that he is indeed). But the question remains if he is not at the head of a coalition of the not willing, having in mind their local political interest to rally the dissatisfied? Not much precise was said for which concrete (de)escalation management we should go, especially in regard to Russia and the war in Ukraine.
In another conference in the city of The Hague organised by the Finnish Institute of International Affairs the eminent Russia specialist Marc Galleotti declared deterrence is about influencing Putin, bringing in the importance of the impression management in which for the moment Putin has the mastership. Symmetrie is what our leaders must look for and find how to make our European message being heard and accepted by other nations.
As the saying goes: History will tell us, but what is sure is that we are living in unprecedented times in the post WWII era.
Fmr PM of Italy and President of M5Stelle, Giuseppe Conte, insists on bringing back the primacy of politics (Interview Giuseppe Conte The Hague. 24.06.2025.)
Giuseppe Conte is an Italian jurist, academic, and politician who served as prime minister of Italy from June 2018 to February 2021. He has been the president of the Five Star Movement since August 2021. The Brussels Morning Newspaper could briefly interview him on the margin of an anti-EU Rearm rally he organised in The Hague with a coalition of left wing parties on June 24 in the Dutch Parliament (Tweede Kamer).
BM. What motivates your opposition to the Rearm program?
It is within the ideal perspective of pacifism, but it is also within a realistic and pragmatic approach. We are not anti-militarist. I was a President of the Italian Government and I know the importance of dealing with differences in opinions and also of the necessity to update and adapt our defense systems with new innovative technologies.
But now the debate is fully filled with this plan to rearm Europe because we are going to concentrate the most important part of our finances in order to refill our arsenal of weapons and also in NATO we are going to nearly triple our defense spending to 5% of GDP. For some countries it is possible, but there are countries like Italy and others this means they’ll have to cut expenses for education, health, transport, etc. You can not invest in defense without cutting in these. They are saying this is needed from the perspective of security but it is just the opposite!
Because they will give more uncertainty to this continent and to its people, because it is entering a spiral of tension. They are giving a sign of threat, a counter threat, and then of course the perspective is one of military escalation. We have to recognize here in Europe the primacy of politics, politics means confronting the opposition of visions in order to find a common solution, a dialogue supported by diplomacy. We must invest much more in diplomacy, in negotiations, so that you can offer a perspective of security more in the sign of safety and of security instead of instability.
BM. Are you saying the problem definition used is wrong and thus the design of the plan is flawed?
Because the analysis is wrong the solution is wrong. At this moment it is not true we are not investing in rearming Europe. If we want to be really more efficient from a perspective of defense, let’s work on a common European project of defense but why are we not able to work at that? Because there is a deficit of politics! You need politics to create a common project. With a common project of European Defense we can save the financial resources and rationalize the expenditures. Current political leaders are not able to work on a common project so they are proposing a rearm project relying on a national basis.
BM. How to break through this stalemate of threat and counter-threat?
The politicians have to find solutions from a perspective of more integration. More integration is a real step forward to have more Europe and this is what they don’t want in the EU and also in NATO. I don’t understand when they say let’s invest in more arms in the EU , in NATO, but at the same time we don’t work to combine the perspectives of defense within NATO and within the EU! There isn’t a real project, just the message: lets’ invest, invest, invest, let’s increase defense expenditures.
With our movement we offer a solution to break through the stalemate, in order to support and to give a political response to the sensibility already spread through the European public opinion which is very clear: not priority into Rearm but priority to invest in the model of social justice. It is important to preserve and to increase the paradigm of a social Europe.
