British Prime Minister urges Europe to reduce its dependence on US defense

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer plans to urge Europe to reduce its dependence on the United States on defense in a speech at the Munich Security Conference, his office said on Friday.

“I am talking about a vision for European security and greater European independence,” said an excerpt from Starmer’s speech on Saturday, which was published by the prime minister, not a US withdrawal but a call for greater burden-sharing and reshaping of linkages.

The conference comes as European leaders remain concerned that the United States under Donald Trump can no longer be relied upon as a guarantor of their security.

Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has repeatedly criticized European countries for not sharing the burden of common defense sufficiently and has raised questions about the future of NATO.

NATO’s European members are scrambling to beef up their defenses against an increasingly aggressive Moscow whose war in Ukraine enters its fifth year this month.

“As I see it, Europe is a sleeping giant… Our economies are ten times larger than that of Russia… We’ve enormous defense capabilities”.

The 10 Downing Street added that Starmer would use his speech to call for closer defense cooperation between the UK and the EU.

In his speech, Starmer will explain: “There is no British security without Europe, and there is no European security without Britain… This is the lesson of history, and it’s also the reality of today”.