Uniting Europe against actors hostile to the EU: time to strengthen our security and defence (topical debate)
Pekka Toveri (PPE). – Madam President, dear colleagues, we are living in dangerous times where dictatorships like Russia challenge our democracy, not only with military means but also with hybrid warfare. Because of that, we need to understand that we need both security and defence. Investing billions in defence is useless if the dictatorships break us from the inside by breaking our unity and democracy with information operations and by destroying our civilian infrastructure with sabotage and cyber attacks.
As an old soldier, I know how important military defence is. I also know that building military defence is relatively easy. We all have defence forces. It is easy to build them so that they are bigger and stronger. But building security against hybrid warfare and improving the resilience of our civilian society is much more demanding. Nevertheless, we shouldn't avoid doing so just because it will be difficult and expensive.
Locking the front door does not help if the back door is open. We need balanced, 360‑degree security and defence to secure the whole EU, our democracy, our societies and citizens. And the earlier we start, with adequate resources, the better.