€800 billion. 

This is the proposed amount that the European Commission’s Readiness 2030 intends to spend on defence spending. €150 billion will come from joint borrowing using the European budget while €650 billion stems from additional spending by individual member states. The EU’s strict budgetary framework will not apply to the latter. Per the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Europe is already the largest arms-importing region. This proposal for defence spending comes at a time when the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) – the main instrument for European social spending – is facing replacement by the European Commission’s proposed National Regional Partnership Plans (NRPPs). Instead of dedicated allocations, European member states will now only have to comply with horizontal spending targets of 14% to social objectives which would drastically reduce funding for social care.

This increase in defence spending cannot be separated from the context of a world that is marching towards further conflict. The US leads – and Europe follows – in the creation of a harsher and crueler world. The abduction of Maduro from Venezuela earlier this year; the oil blockade on Cuba which has crippled its national power grid leaving many areas without power; and the war on Iran which has not only murdered thousands of Iranian civilians but has also had widescale ramifications on the global economy with inflated production costs from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. These are all signs of a world in crisis. And yet, there is no sign of an abating defence spending. The number continues to rise. 

While governments across Europe continue to increase defence spending, the people of Europe are engaging in various struggles to resist and fight for their livelihoods. More than this, the democratic classes in Europe are linking their fights in their countries with the plight of the oppressed peoples in the global South. From the Global Sumud Flotilla, to direct actionists in Britain and most prominently in the dockworkers’ strike in Italy to prevent arms being shipped for use in the genocide in Gaza, the people of Europe are fighting back. The test of militance for any movement is the extent to which they are working in solidarity with their comrades in the exploited South.

It is for this reason why the International League of Peoples’ Struggle in Europe is launching the Resistance for Peace, Democracy and Liberation campaign. On August 29, 2025, international activists, grassroots movements, civil society organisations and political parties will be converging in Brussels for the People’s Festival. At Mundo Matongé (Rue d’Edimbourg 26), this festival will serve as a platform to confront the rising military spending, and call for resistance and solidarity.

There will be speakers like Dr Foad Izadi from the University of Tehran who will be sharing how to fight back in the context of the erosion of rights and the threat of foreign powers encroaching on national sovereignty like what the United States is currently doing towards Iran. Responding to US President Donald Trump’s assertion of the Strait of Hormuz as ‘American territory’, Dr Izadi responded that: “The last time we had a foreign power declare the Strait of Hormuz to be their territory was in the 16th century. The Portuguese did that and they were forced out by the people in Iran. I think the same thing will happen.” Repression always breeds resistance.

Moreover, various representatives of liberation movements like the National Democratic Front of the Philippines will also be present to provide an analysis on what the rising military spending in Europe means for counter-insurgency in their home countries like the Philippines. Marian Espinosa, NDFP representative remarked that “The Filipino people are not only being forced to bankroll militarization and a brutal ‘counterinsurgency’ war through their taxes and the wealth generated by overseas Filipino workers. They are also being made to finance one of the most corrupt regimes in the history of the country. Billions of pesos are funneled into programs and projects carried out in the name of ‘counterinsurgency,’ yet these same funds are either being pocketed by corrupt officials or being used to bomb peasant and indigenous communities in the countryside.” Increased military spending in Europe directly relates to further oppression in countries like the Philippines.

Our governments continue to expose themselves as fundamentally anti-peace, anti-democracy and anti-people. 

It is time for us all to force them to remember that they are supposed to serve us.

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