The European Commission has proposed an €800bn hike in defence spending — the morning after the US stopped military aid to Ukraine.
Most of the money (€650bn) is to come from national treasuries, unlocked by letting countries off the hook on EU debt and deficit rules if they boosted defence budgets by a further 1.5 percent of GDP on average over the next four years.
In EU jargon, that meant "activating the escape clause in the stability and growth pact", said commission president Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels on Tuesday (4 March).
A further €150bn would come from joint EU loans for states to buy "pan-European" materiel, she added, listing items such as "air and missile defence, artillery, drone and anti-drone systems, cyber, and electronic warfare".
"We are in an era of rearmament and Europe is ready to act," she said.
The €650bn "fiscal space" would cover "long-term" needs for Europe's own security, while the loans meant "member states can massively step up supplies to Ukraine", in a more "urgent" time frame, she added.
Other elements of von der Leyen's plan included letting EU countries spend "cohesion funding" on defence, referring to a part of the EU budget which had been historically reserved for helping poorer regions to catch up to the European average.
The cohesion budget is worth some €10bn a year and covers Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
The European Investment Bank would also become more involved in boosting Europe's private defence industry, von der Leyen said.
The commission chief made her brief statement in her Berlaymont HQ in Brussels without taking press questions, despite a radical US announcement on Monday evening that it was halting all military aid to Ukraine, including arms and ammunition that were already in transit to Kyiv via Poland and Romania.
US president Donald Trump did it on grounds Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelensky did not want to sign his ceasefire plan with Russia, which included no security guarantees, demanded US access to Ukraine's mineral wealth, and ceded Ukrainian territory to Russia.
Trump's move met with dismay in France, Poland, and Ukraine.
France's junior minister for Europe, Benjamin Haddad, told French radio early on Tuesday: "Fundamentally, if you want peace, does a decision to suspend arms to Ukraine reinforce peace or does it make it more distant? It makes it more distant, because it only strengthens the hand of the aggressor on the ground, which is Russia".
Polish deputy defence minister Cezary Tomczyk said Trump's decision was "bad news".
"It looks like he is pushing us towards capitulation, meaning [accepting] Russia's demands. To stop aid now means to help Putin," also said Oleksandr Merezhko, the head of the foreign affairs committee in Ukraine's parliament.
"This is worse than Munich, because at least there they didn’t try to paint Czechoslovakia as the aggressor, but here they try to accuse the victim of aggression — it is extremely dangerous," he added, referring to a British and French deal to let Hitler annex Czechoslovakia in 1938, paving the way to the outbreak of the Second World War one year later.
The pro-Russian government in Hungary stood out in Europe in welcoming Trump's move, however.
"The US president and the Hungarian government share the same stance: instead of continuing weapons shipments and the war, a ceasefire and peace talks are needed as soon as possible," a government spokesman said, according to the Reuters news agency.
EU leaders will meet in Brussels on Thursday to discuss how to cope with Trump's pro-Russia swerve over the past week, which included the now infamous verbal bullying of Zelensky in the White House last Friday.
Proposals under discussion include a French idea to try to agree a one-month "truce" with Russia on air attacks, but not ground warfare, designed to lead to a more lasting "ceasefire", backed by an "assurance force" put together by a coalition of EU and non-EU states, including the UK.
They also include confiscation of €210bn of frozen Russian central bank assets in Europe if Russian president Vladimir Putin broke the peace deal in future.
But EU leaders will struggle to adopt a common decision on the Ukraine war on Thursday after both Hungary and the pro-Russian administration in Slovakia said they would block any moves that undermined US policy on Kyiv.
Hungary is also threatening to veto the rollover of an EU blacklist of some 1,800 Russian individuals when it comes up for renewal on 15 March.
"We want the closest possible transatlantic relations", von der Leyen said on Tuesday in a letter to EU leaders ahead of Thursday's meeting.
But Europe "needs to be in charge of its own deterrence and defence," she added.
"Europe faces a clear and present danger [Russian invasion] on a scale that none of us have seen in our adult lifetime," she said.
Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.
Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.