dear Alexandre,
I want to start by thanking you, dear Alexandre, for an exceptionally successful Presidency of the Council. You have managed to reach political agreement on over 45 files spanning all of our major political priorities. It goes from the European Green Deal to digitalisation, from industry and the economy to enlargement. I think two proposals were exemplary, that is the Net-Zero Industry Act and the new Economic Governance Framework.
But you also steered the first ever agreement on a mid-term revision of the Multiannual Financial Framework. This enabled, because it included, the EUR 50 billion Facility for Ukraine. You delivered another highlight that was the adoption of the Pact on Migration and Asylum, certainly one of the most challenging sets of legislation this College put forward. I also want to emphasise that it is not only legislative files that you managed, but you also chaired the Industry Summit in Antwerp, the Social Partners Summit in Val Duchesse and the Pillar of Social Rights in La Hulpe.
During your Presidency, in fact just this week, we also adopted the 14th sanctions package against Russia. And also this week, we adopted new sanctions on Belarus that will align them with our Russian sanctions regime. This is a very strong sign of our continued determination to deprive Russia of the means to continue its war of aggression against Ukraine. And of course, there was a big event: On Tuesday, we launched the accession negotiations for Ukraine and Moldova. Today, in a further step, we have paid almost EUR 1.9 billion in pre-financing under the Ukraine Facility. So it was very fitting and good that we could discuss these developments in person with President Zelenskyy at the start of our meeting. I was particularly honoured to sign the security commitments between the European Union and Ukraine, on behalf of the European Commission. We also presented to the Leaders the G7 initiative, to provide Ukraine with loans of roughly USD 50 billion. Now we will work with our Member States, with the G7 partners and Ukraine, to put the necessary legislation in place. We are looking forward to providing Ukraine with the relevant funds before the end of the year.
We had many other topics, as you heard from my colleague, Charles Michel. I want to have a second look at the security and defence element that was discussed. We all know, and it was said already this evening, that we are facing unprecedented and growing security threats. High-intensity war has returned to our continent, and Russia is an aggressive and disruptive power. It has rapidly transitioned to a war economy. Just one figure: It will spend over 7% of its GDP on defence this year. So as we agreed in the Versailles Agenda, again last March, Europe as a whole, needs to step up on defence. Let me give you three figures that show the necessity: If you look at the combined EU spending on defence from 1999 to 2021, so in 3 years, it increased by 20%. In that same time frame, China's defence spending increased by almost 600%, and Russia's defence spending by almost 300%. And this is even before Russia massively increased its defence spending over the last two years.
We have taken various sources, from the Strategic Compass to the European Defence Industrial Strategy, to identify the defence capabilities that are required. We have on top, in addition, some Member States that have recently called for a European air defence shield, and others that called for the reinforcement of the Union's eastern land border. And if we take all of this into account and based on non-classified sources, we estimate that additional defence investments of around EUR 500 billion are needed over the next decade. There are some sources in the MFF, close to EUR 11 billion, that could be topped up with another EUR 11 billion off budget by the European Peace Facility. We have created already a toolbox for defence. Just a reminder: We have the European Defence Fund, the Connecting Europe Facility, or the European Defence Industry Programme, that has, for example the Eurodrone as flagship. But overall, more is needed, and therefore, as the Council had asked for, there are options if you come to the defence spending possibilities. The first is: additional national contribution. The second option is: agreement on new own resources for the European level. The proposal for that is on the table of the Council. Then, of course, there is a second question, whether Leaders call immediately on those resources, or whether they use the borrowing power of the Union budget upfront and call on these resources later. None of these options are easy. All of them have to be looked at with the political will to decide what to do together, but they have to be looked at seriously.
Finally, a brief look at the Strategic Agenda. I welcome its adoption, because it prepares the next institutional cycle and sets the political priorities by the 27 EU Leaders for the next years. So this provides an important input for the Commission to develop the next Political Guidelines that I would have to put on the table when it comes to the vote in the Parliament. This Strategic Agenda starts with a very sober assessment of the new geopolitical realities. I will skip them because we have already discussed them tonight. The response to these challenges, are very clearly defined in the Strategic Agenda: scaling up the European defence, from the spending to interoperability, but also a very clear look at the climate threats that are out there, so the goal to become the first climate-neutral continent whilst strengthening the competitiveness of our social market economies – there is a very strong focus on the topic of competitiveness –, and of course, the endorsement of implementing our twin green and digital transitions and scaling up Europe's manufacturing capacity for clean technologies. So there is a wide range of topics in the Strategic Agenda, an important input for the Political Guidelines for the Commission.
