Luxembourg’s head of government, Luc Frieden, has cautioned against raising European military capabilities by extracting funds from social spending. “We will not abandon our European social model. Defense spending must never compromise other central goals,” Frieden stated in an interview with Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland. He stressed that the fragile social cohesion painstakingly built across the continent must be protected, an issue, he noted, where Europe differs from the United States. Therefore, any additional defense expenditures must be covered through increased borrowing or new European instruments.
This perspective stands in contrast to U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who refers to himself as a war minister. Hegseth previously stated at the NATO headquarters in Brussels that Europeans had dedicated too much money to social systems instead of defense, demanding, “That ends now.”
Frieden, however, remains convinced that the United States still requires Europe as a key ally. He believes that many Americans do not feel their country is capable of handling everything single-handedly; they recognize clearly that the US and Europe are far stronger when working together than the United States operating alone, especially when facing conflicts such as the war in Ukraine.
