Recent years saw both Poland and the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) unveil ambitious plans to fortify their eastern borders with Russia and Belarus, both as a deterrent and as an actual infrastructure to defend against a future invasion.
However, the staggering costs associated with these kinds of megaprojects led the four countries to try their luck with Brussels as well. In their joint letter sent to the European Council and Commission chiefs ahead of the EU leaders’ summit this week, the eastern member states push for a centralized, EU-funded initiative to complement their own.
“Extraordinary measures need to be employed as the EU’s external border must be protected and defended with military and civilian means,” the letter argues, building the case for Europe’s new ‘Iron Curtain’:
Building a defense infrastructure system along the EU external border with Russia and Belarus will address the dire and urgent need to secure the EU from military and hybrid threats.
The letter does not specify how this project would look in reality, but we might have an idea by looking at the already existing plans in the region.
Poland’s “East Shield” project—or as commonly referred to as the “Tusk Line,” echoing France’s famous Maginot Line from the 1930s—is planned to run along the country’s entire 600-km eastern border of the country with Belarus and the Russian-controlled Kaliningrad, and is estimated to cost €2.4 billion alone.
The Tusk Line will be composed of both physical defense infrastructure—bunkers, anti-tank obstacles, and even minefields—and complementary digital elements, such as satellite monitoring and anti-drone systems.
Similarly, the Baltic countries have also agreed to establish a ‘collective defense line,’ complete with integrated air defense, along their border with Russia and Belarus in the near future, with Estonia alone planning to build some 600 bunkers starting in early 2025.
The “hybrid threats” mentioned in the letter refer to Russia’s non-military actions meant to destabilize the EU, including cyberwarfare and the deployment of Middle Eastern migrants all along the EU’s eastern borders.
The need for addressing Russia’s ‘instrumentalization of the migration crisis’ became a hot topic again earlier this month after a Polish border guard was killed by a migrant with a makeshift spear at the Belarussian border, prompting widespread outrage in the country.
European leaders convened in Brussels primarily to nominate the next batch of bureaucrats for the top EU jobs, but another major focus of their summit is Ukraine and the bloc’s future defense initiatives. A still too vaguely etched-out plan from the Commission is to set up a giant defense fund to cover everything from joint procurement to defense industry modernization, worth up to €500 billion.
The EU’s contribution to the Eastern European ‘Iron Curtain,’ estimated to cost at least €2.5 billion, might also be discussed this week but no decision can be expected so soon.
Likewise, the Council was urged in a separate letter signed by Poland and Greece to move forward with an initiative of building an Israel-style ‘Iron Dome’ anti-missile system as well, pitched last year together with the idea of the EU’s own aircraft carrier and military infrastructure in space.
