EU to activate clause to allow 'substantially' higher defence spending
Echoing comments made by NATO's chief in the past couple of hours - see 12.46pm - Ursula von der Leyen says the EU must spend more on defence.
Europe "has to do more", the president of the European Commission says, and "must bring more to the table".
In a hint that the new NATO spending target for each member state may rise to more than 3% from the current level of 2% - as Rutte also suggested earlier - she says there must be "hundreds of billions of euros more investment every year".
"Currently, the EU 27 are spending around 2% of GDP on defence," she says.
"But we will need to increase that number considerably, once again, because from just below 2% to above 3% will mean hundreds of billions of euros of more investment every year."
To that end, she adds she is activating a clause to allow member states to "substantially increase" their defence spend.
"Now is the time to move mountains in the European Union," she adds.