Keynote speech by Commissioner Kubilius in the conference "Military Schengen 2026. Military Logistics: Requirements for Infrastructure and Carriers"

And to speak about military mobility. Because everybody knows, how important Hamburg Port is for the economy and what a significant role this Port is playing in the whole landscape of European military mobility.

And we need to discuss military mobility not as theoretical issue, but as an urgent and most important issue of our deterrence capability.

Because Russia is still not being deterred.

Next year Russia will allocate 180 billion euro for its 2027 military budget, which will be  33% bigger than the budget for this year. In PPP terms  Russia next year will spend the same amount or even a  little bit more than all the EU Member States are going to spend together (around 500-550 billion euro); Russia is still outproducing us in defence industrial production, Russia is able to rapidly make military technological innovations, like new types of drones.

If the day X would come in terms of possible Russian aggression, we will face a battle tested Russian army, with the ability to use 10 million drones per year (i.e. around 30 000 drones per day), with a war economy and a stronger army, than they had in 2022.

Russia is preparing for a long war and confrontation.

Because our defence readiness has to speed up.

Council and European Parliament have to understand this and deliver. And especially on military mobility.

Because as General John Pershing, Commander of the American Army in the First World War said: “infantry wins battles, logistics wins wars”.

I absolutely subscribe to those words of General John Pershing.

In Europe, the defence of each country depends on the collective European defence architecture, in which the movement of troops and equipment between different countries and regions has crucial importance.