Officials signaled that these back-up options will dominate corridor chats in Warsaw.
“What we are going to move towards is the global trade war, which reduces global growth, reduces the ability of countries to keep inflation under control,” Fabian Zuleeg, the chief executive of the European Policy Center think tank, said before Trump reversed course. “So what we’re seeing is a global downturn.”
The real war
Increased tensions between the U.S. and Europe are also pushing countries that take a hard line on defense, such as Poland and the U.K., to explore alternative ideas to strengthen their military sectors.
Outlined in an informal proposal by the Bruegel think tank in Brussels, Warsaw supports creating a new rearmament fund to buy weapons together. A handful of northern countries — Sweden, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands — as well as the U.K. have been involved in preliminary secret talks about a similar plan devised by the British Treasury.
The idea comes on top of a separate Commission initiative to offer EU countries more fiscal flexibility and €150 billion in defense loans. Unlike the Commission scheme, the rearmament fund is immediately open to the U.K. and potentially other non-EU countries.
In a sign of openness to the project, the U.K. as well as Norway and Switzerland — two affluent non-EU countries with a precious and rare triple-A rating, which underscores their ability to borrow money — will join the gathering.