Editorial - Suddenly all grown up!

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Europe, which has always been able to comfortably rely on its big brother in America in the event of a security emergency, must now – now that Putin's Russia has once again become the villain it was in the old James Bond films, and now that the United States under Donald Trump is turning its back on Europe more and more every day – grow up virtually overnight, which in this case means becoming militarily independent of the USA as quickly as possible.

This has been neglected for years, as the USA has always had the back of us Europeans when it mattered, but that is now finally over. While Europe initially was flabbergasted, it has now realised that if it doesn't want to be eaten by others, it has to do something for its own defence, which is of course easier said than done.

What the new defence strategy should look like was outlined yesterday in Brussels, where the EU Commission presented its plans for the rearmament of Europe as set out in a White Paper, before the EU heads of state and government discuss the White Paper and the next steps in the area of defence at a special summit today and tomorrow.