Welfare Not Warfare: Europe’s rearmament and its costs

By Bert De Belder

Healthcare, not missiles; pensions, not F-35s; schools, not tanks. That is the message from the 12,000 people demonstrating in Brussels last Sunday June 14th for Welfare, not Warfare, against militarization and for social progress – at a moment when European governments have committed €800 billion to rearmament. Linking up the fight against austerity measures and social cuts, that the large majority of the people are starting to feel in their daily lives, jobs, salaries or pensions; with the fight against militarization and increased military spending, proved a successful formula. People reject the capitalist establishment’s logic that there would be no money for education, social security or public services, while overnight billions can be found for arms and destruction.

The truth is simpler: the same governments that claim there is no money for our social security suddenly find billions for weapons. The same political leaders who want people to work longer, roll out the red carpet for Lockheed Martin, Rheinmetall, and other arms dealers. The same ministers who cut spending on the sick, unemployed, and pensioners write blank checks for the war economy.

In Belgium, the trade-off is concrete. The De Wever government is pursuing a major budget consolidation, cutting up to €14 billion from public services and €3 billion from pensions. Unemployment benefits are capped at two years, affecting 184,000 people. Once the pension reform is full effect, workers will lose an average of €318 per month in pension income — with women bearing seven in ten of the losses. Belgium’s military budget, meanwhile, is being accelerated to 2 per cent of GDP this year, requiring €4 billion in additional annual military spending.

People came from all over Belgium to the demonstration, in response to the call from the Belgian Stop Militarisation platform, but also from across Europe, led by the Stop ReArm Europe coalition. Among them were many young people and students, workers and trade unionists, teachers and academicians, healthcare workers, and lots of activists from peace movements, climate action groups, human rights defenders, NGOs, the feminist movement, the anti-racist movement. This diversity and broadness also literally showed in the colorful, dynamic and energetic ways the various groups walked the streets of Brussels.

They were all united in saying no to the militarisation of society that De Wever [Prime Minister], Bouchez [President of the MR, French-speaking neoliberal party], Francken [Minister of Defence] want to impose at the Belgian level, the likes of Macron, Merz, Starmer and von der Leyen at the European level, and of course Donald Trump and his ilk on a world scale.

They were also united in their rejection of the current ongoing wars and armed conflicts, united in a firm ‘No’ to Trump and his wars, which are setting the world ablaze, from Iran to Cuba via Palestine.

And at the same time, they shouted ‘No’ to an imperialist Europe, that is planning to arm itself to the teeth to give itself the operational capacity to intervene from the Sahel to the Persian Gulf to guarantee the profits of their own ‘European champion’ multinationals and gain greater access to the critical minerals and other natural resources in the Global South. Imperialist Europe is about cobalt, lithium, uranium, gas, oil, and supply chains. The Democratic Republic of Congo produces roughly 70 per cent of the world’s cobalt; the EU has signed strategic mineral partnership agreements with the DRC and Zambia to secure supply chains, while simultaneously deploying military training missions across Central Africa and the Sahel. It is about the old colonial reflex in a new uniform. The names change and the technology evolves, but the power structures remain recognizable: Europe is building a new imperialism, led by an ever-growing German military apparatus.

A society preparing for war also changes from within. It grows accustomed to orders, distrusts criticism, and applauds to the rhythm of the war drum. Pacifists are dismissed as naive, trade union members as irresponsible, and opposition parties as allies of the enemy. Militarization abroad always goes hand-in-hand with militarization at home: branding opponents of war as the domestic enemy, restrictions of democratic space, and the normalization of authoritarian reflexes.

Albeit grim and determined to fight the militarist-imperialist monster, at the same time the Brussels demonstration was, in a way, cheerful and hopeful. People showed their desire to supplant war and death with peace and life, to replace a society for the few super-rich with a society for and of the many. They illustrated this optimism with dance and theatre, music and creatively self-made banners, songs and hugs.

The June 14 demonstration was a crossroads of European resistance. From Italy comes the experience of unions and peace movements that have organized major actions in recent years against war, arms deliveries, and military escalation. Dockworkers, trade unionists, peace activists, and social movements have repeatedly refused to let the Mediterranean become a logistical corridor for war. From the United Kingdom comes the strength of a peace movement that, together with unions and anti-racist organizations, has brought masses of people onto the streets against war policy, against the genocide in Gaza, and against the complicity of European governments. From Germany come the youth who quit their classrooms to reject a future as cannon fodder. Their school strikes against conscription and militarization show a generation that refuses to accept that their schools are deteriorating while the Bundeswehr advertises everywhere. The resistance of German healthcare workers, doctors, and hospital staff against the militarization of the health sector is also an important signal: hospitals should heal people, not be transformed into components of a war infrastructure.

The demonstration was followed by a general assembly of the Stop ReArm Europe platform, to exchange and discuss the next steps. This was just the beginning of rebuilding and reviving the peace movement. It will continue to grow in the months and years to come, to promote and make real a different path: that of a Belgium and a Europe (and world) of peace, dialogue, understanding, common security and social progress. For the countries of the Global South — which did not choose this war economy and are already bearing its costs in fuel prices, food insecurity, and military encirclement — there is no greater urgency.

Bert De Belder is at the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PVDA-PTB), as head of its Department of International Relations.