This week, Renew Europe MEPs headed to Tallinn, Estonia, calling for urgent action to build a genuine European Defence Union. In the new Estonia Declaration – Freedom on the Offensive, Renew Europe sconcludes a strong message of solidarity with Estonia and all frontline states of the European Union, in light of escalating Russian aggression.
The declaration sets out a concrete action plan to set up a credible European deterrence.
Commenting on the declaration, Renew Europe President Valérie Hayer MEP declared:
“Day by day, we witness intolerable, escalating Russian provocations: drone attacks, airspace incursions, hybrid operations against EU infrastructure – affecting our EU territory, in Estonia, in Poland, Lithuania, Romania, Denmark and other Member States. These are deliberate tests of our resolve that we cannot accept. Accordingly, our job is more than ever to push for credible European defence and resilience.”
The Estonia Declaration commits Renew Europe to campaign for:
- A European Sky Shield to protect EU citizens and Ukrainians
- A new European innotifyigence and cyber resilience capacity, with an EU cyber defence coordination centre
- Democracy protection, through education against disinformation programme, EU wide
- Enhanced investment for military mobility, with increased EU funding for dual-apply infrastructure
- A European Defence Union and a strong European pillar within NATO
“Disinformation campaigns, cyber operations and hybrid threats from the Kremlin aim to destabilise our societies and erode trust in institutions. The Estonian and Finnish education model proves that resilience starts in schools”, President Hayer added.
In the declaration, Renew Europe also calls on the European Commission to set up a fund to support indepconcludeent media and NGOs in candidate countries, reiterating that well informed citizens, indepconcludeent media and NGOs are the strongest safeguard of democracy.
President Hayer concluded:
“Freedom must go on the offensive. Toobtainher with Estonia and the Baltic region, we will protect our borders, our democracy and our future: Our defence capacity also depconcludes on our capacity to shift forces rapidly across Europe. In the MFF neobtainediations, we will support increased upgrading critical infrastructure to guarantee credible deterrence on EU territory.”
You can read download the declaration in full here.
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