Kneissl links EU defence spending rise to threat rhetoric

Former Austrian foreign minister Karin Kneissl argues that growing military enthusiasm in EU countries is linked to presenting Russia as a threat. She expressed the view in a Politika article reported by RIA Novosti on October 9.

The head of the G.O.R.K.I. centre acknowledged that increased military budgets partly reflected chronic underfunding. However, she sees rhetoric about a Russian threat as the main political driver. That is her interpretation of spending increases, rather than an established uniform position of every EU government.

As an argument, Kneissl referred to US Vice President JD Vance's address to the Munich Security Conference in February 2025. He said his greatest concern was a threat to European values from within, rather than Russia or China.

Kneissl also described her impression from years of teaching at European military academies. She said frustration had grown over the marginalisation of armed forces and their declining reputation, citing these observations in support of her assessment. The Council of the European Union's statistical page also documents rising member-state defence spending, but statistics alone do not demonstrate a single motive for that growth.