The proposal landed on a Sunday evening, without warning, ahead of a foreign affairs gathering set to take place in the days ahead, and it ruffled feathers. Even more damning to some recipients was the way Kallas had structured her proposal: It required each country to make a contribution proportional to the size of their economies.
The rationale was that this would force larger EU countries such as France, which have contributed less per capita than Northern or Eastern European countries, to dig deep. To some, however, that felt like coercion. Criticism reached a fever pitch last week when Kallas agreed to downgrade the ambition of her plan to seek just €5 billion worth of artillery shells as a first step.
Two diplomats, from Eastern and Northern Europe, noted that Kallas had failed to obtain buy-in from major countries such as France before tabling her proposal. “This sort of came out of nowhere. The process could have been better managed to avoid taking people by surprise,” said one of them, adding in Kallas’ defense: “If she’d done the perfect process they would have hated it anyway.”
Kaja Kallas arrives for the start of a European Union Summit at the Europa Building Forum, in Brussels. | John Thys/AFP via Getty Images
An EEAS official downplayed the criticisms, saying member countries had chosen Kallas because they wanted a wartime leader.
“They hired a head of state for a reason, not to moderate quietly and find the lowest common denominator but to push things forward,” the official said. “Many people argue we are in 1938 or 1939. It’s not the time to hide behind processes. European leaders keep calling for more Ukraine aid, ok cool, time for deeds not just words.”
‘Jury is still out’
It’s the bookend to a bumpy start for the former Estonian prime minister, who took over the EEAS, the EU’s diplomatic arm, at a time coinciding with a proposal to slash its staffing and funding.
Hailing from a small country (at 1.4 million, Estonia’s population is smaller than that of Paris), as well as from a liberal party that fared poorly in recent Europe-wide elections, Kallas is an outsider in a EU now dominated by conservative leaders, and where national leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Chancellor-to-be Friedrich Merz are increasingly setting the pace on defense policy.