Originally Posted by
Buster Hyman
Obvious answers to both of those but, whilst we know Oz is not a big player in Military expenditure (big for us though), does the EU seriously want to undermine the fact that a lot of our kit is from Europe already?
It's not the EU. It's France. They try to get some backing from the rest of the EU but the response is rather lackluster. It was an Arms Deal between France and Australia. End of. EU was never involved in that deal and would not have profited.
It's the general loss of interest of the US in the transatlantic axis and the massive shift towards APAC what worries Europe (and where the solitary retreat from Afghanistan was showing the same pattern). That part of the cry- out is rather genuine. The tears over the dropped deal with France are not so much (except in France where it is almost the opposite). That's probably more kind of support of Macron against Front Nationale/Marine LePen.