| It looks like despite political infighting, the US Senate will unlock its $60-billion military aid package to Ukraine as it fights Russian aggression. But the EU should see these hesitations across the Atlantic as a clear message that one day soon, our Union should be able to extinguish the fire at its borders with its own means. Individual countries cannot but the EU can: Just as Baron Munchausen pulls himself out of a mire by his hair, the EU is able to raise large amounts of money out of nowhere. This miracle happened during the eurozone crisis when the EU created a legal instrument, the European Financial Stability Facility, able to issue bonds and with a lending capacity of €440 billion. And with the COVID pandemic, the miracle was repeated as the EU adopted a recovery fund with a firepower of €750 billion, financed through common debt issuance. The same line of thinking has inspired politicians to imagine defence bonds – to finance a major boost of the EU’s defence capabilities, after years of neglect when it was assumed that war was a thing of the past or that Uncle Sam would always come to the EU’s defence. Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas highlighted in December the need for EU defence bonds to fight Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. This largely coincided with an important message by European Council President Charles Michel, who said the EU should consider ‘European defence bonds’ to fund investment in European defence and security as part of a new push for deeper military coordination. Speaking at the European Defence Agency annual conference on 30 November, Michel said EU member states should pool what could amount to €600 billion in defence investment over the next 10 years. | 
