We haven't emerged from a rampant inflationary crisis in Europe yet, and our good leaders are already planning an investment of 800 billion euros to rearm...
It's still not clear how they're going to do it. There's talk of each member country increasing defense spending from their own budgets... there's talk of the European Central Bank issuing (printing) more money to cover the new budgetary requirement; there's talk of creating repayable "soft" loans for European states to spend jointly on pan-European capabilities such as missiles, ammunition, air defense, drones, and other needs such as cybersecurity or mobility...
Obviously, all based on debt, money that will never be fully repaid, and if it is repaid, it will be through citizen contributions and most likely through inflation.
Just today, "Germany votes on a 500 billion debt increase."
That is, inflation and tax increases...
It's clear that Europe can't continue as it has these past few decades. We were naive to believe we could simply demilitarize under the umbrella of NATO... something many of us already thought was unrealistic.
Time is slowly putting things back in their place. It "only" took three years of war in the UKRAINE and for TRUMP to say some of his nonsense for us to take our own defense seriously...
As always, we're late and poorly... hallelujah!
Personally, I have to admit that, on an economic level, this new horizon doesn't hurt me. My defense ETF is breaking new records day after day, even though it goes against my own conscience, since I consider myself a pacifist, though not naive...
But it's clear that if we invest public money in weapons or defense, we don't invest in development, for which we will pay dearly in the future.
@toofasteddie