How the smaller EU countries plan to strengthen their capabilities

Thursday, Apr 3, 2025

Der Standard

EU nations plan defense upgrades, mobilizing €800 billion to counter Eastern threats and geopolitical shifts.

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[This is an automatically generated summary, for reference only]

Europe is moving to strengthen its defense forces due to threats from Russia and Donald Trump’s shift away from Europe. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen introduced “Readiness 2030,” aiming to mobilize 800 billion euros for this purpose, with the initial focus on how larger EU countries plan to rearm and the political and financial obstacles they face; the following section will examine smaller nations in more detail.

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PULSE is an initiative coordinated by OBCT that has been promoting intensive journalistic cross-border collaborations in Europe since 2024. Its main aim is to help strengthen the European public sphere by reporting on and telling stories from new and diverse perspectives.

At the heart of PULSE are 10 leading national news outlets (Delfi – Lithuania, Deník Referendum – Czechia, Der Standard – Austria, EfSyn – Greece, El Confidencial – Spain, Gazeta Wyborcza – Poland, HotNews – Romania, HVG – Hungary, Il Sole 24 Ore – Italy, Mediapool – Bulgaria) and three transnational organisations, including OBCT , n-ost and Voxeurop .

Additional outlets and journalists are involved as associate partners, including EUobserver , Føljeton (Denmark), H-Alter (Croatia), Levila (Estonia), Rubryka (Ukraine), and The Journal Investigates (Ireland).

PULSE is driven by a sort of virtual transnational newsroom made up of journalists from all the publications involved. It collaboratively produces new journalistic content on European issues on a daily basis, coming in many different languages. The editorial output amounts to over a thousand publications per year, mostly in article form.

PULSE also runs 4 thematic networks open to any European journalist interested in crucial issues such as EU enlargement, relations between the EU and other global powers, the EU’s green transition, or media and the information society. These networks function as online communities and periodically publish calls for pitches.