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Good morning. I am manning the newsletter today as Henry is away. US President Donald Trump yesterday said that Ukraine was in a position to seize all of its territory back from by Russia, in an abrupt change of his stance on the war between the two countries.
Today, our economy correspondent unpacks German plans on how to ready the EU’s defences by 2030, and our Netherlands correspondent reports on Dutch plans to send failed asylum seekers to Uganda.
Taking charge
Germany is ready to take a leading role in the EU’s rearmament drive, pitching itself as the leader for joint arms projects in an outline of how it thinks the bloc should respond to mounting security threats from Russia, writes Paola Tamma.
Context: Brussels is preparing a road map on how to get the EU’s defences ready by 2030 that will be presented to EU leaders meeting in October.
In a leaked policy paper seen by the Financial Times, Berlin sent in its recommendations, proposing to create “collective capability coalitions” — groups of member states that would jointly develop and procure weapon systems across specific priority areas, such as air defence.
“Germany stands ready to assume a leading role,” Berlin wrote.
Most of the joint projects should be aimed at the threat from the east: “Given the persistent threat posed by Russia to the security of the EU, the projects should primarily focus on the protection of the eastern flank,” the paper read.
Germany would also like the European Defence Agency to take on a bigger role as “central matchmaking and co-ordination platform for European procurement needs”, and urged governments to provide it the necessary data to map capability gaps.
Through joint procurement, member states should pool their market power while also aligning standards across national armaments. Crucially, “the projects should be open for Ukraine and for eligible third countries”, Germany said — a jab at France’s push for European preference in defence procurement.
The paper also urges deregulation of arms manufacturing, including easing state aid and competition rules. “Deregulation is all the more important since member states must be able in the future to massively and swiftly ramp up their defence production in a state of defence,” it said.
Finally, Berlin thinks the funding for the projects should not come from new common EU debt, something southern countries have been calling for.
Instead, Germany reiterated its stance that the money should come from an existing €150bn defence loan scheme, and a separate €1.5bn subsidy programme currently under negotiation, as well as national budgets.
Chart du jour: Demographic dilemma
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Italy is considering freezing citizens’ retirement age at 67, though critics warn this could put pressure on the country’s improving but still fragile public finances.
No place like home
The Netherlands is nearing a deal to send failed asylum seekers to Uganda to await return to their home countries, as the EU trials new controversial ways to manage migration, writes Andy Bounds.
Context: As anti-immigration sentiment rises, European countries have been working on increasingly harsh measures to curb migration, including considering sending people to centres in countries outside the EU.
The European Commission has backed the idea of setting up so-called “return hubs” outside the EU, where people whose asylum claims have been rejected could be sent to if they can’t be repatriated to their home countries.
EU countries are struggling to send back the majority of failed asylum seekers as many governments refuse to accept their citizens back, and some applicants lack paperwork or disappear.
Human rights activists have criticised “return hubs”, fearing rights violations, but supporters believe they are legally feasible as the people sent there have had their claim for asylum rejected. Italy already operates a similar scheme in Albania.
The Netherlands and Uganda are close to signing such a deal, according to two people familiar with the matter. Dutch asylum minister David van Weel, who is from the VVD party, aims to seal the deal this week during the UN General Assembly in New York, Dutch media reported.
“The discussions with Uganda are ongoing, advanced and constructive. The minister is positive about it,” a spokesman for van Weel said.
The terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but it would probably involve sending people originally from other African countries to Uganda, where they would await being sent back home.
The aim is to conclude the agreement before Dutch elections on October 29. Migration remains a big concern of Dutch voters, especially after an asylum seeker was arrested on suspicion of stabbing a young woman to death in August.
Disagreement over migration policy was also a key reason for the previous government’s fall.
What to watch today
EU Council president António Costa speaks at UN Security Council in New York.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen speaks at UN Climate Summit in New York.
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