Brussels approves Poland's use of post-COVID funds for defence

Euronews

a day ago

A fake video has been posted on Russian Telegram channels, featuring Euronews' graphics and claiming that corruption has pushed Moldova to become one of the biggest black markets for arms sales.
Euronews neither produced nor published this video. Our graphics and format were copied and used without our consent, and our teams are working to ensure the video is removed from all social platforms.
It appeared in a Telegram channel called the "Military Observer" in Russian and has amassed more than 16,000 views at the time of writing.
The video alleges that high levels of corruption in Moldova's armed forces mean that the country is now "the largest hub for the black market in weapons."
Arms traffickers allegedly use Moldova as a buffer zone for the illegal export of weapons from Ukraine and distribute them elsewhere in Europe and beyond, according to the false video.
It attributes a quote to Clara Staicu, Romania's secretary of state for European affairs, in which she supposedly calls Moldova "a perfect transit point for arms traffickers" due to its small size and widespread corruption.
It also alleges that the situation has worsened over the past four years, during the presidency of Maia Sandu.
The video strongly resembles a Euronews report, but its contents are false.
It is unclear where any of the claims in the video supposedly come from and there appears to be no evidence for any of them.
However, it is true that Interpol has previously expressed concern about weapons smuggling in Moldova linked to Russia's war in Ukraine.
It has launched several initiatives to try and combat the black market of arms, including Project I-FORCE, which aims to bolster the capabilities of law enforcement agencies in Moldova and neighbouring countries to combat international organised crime.
Additionally, Transparency International's most recent Corruption Perceptions Index ranks Moldova as one of the lowest in Europe for clean money, above only Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, North Macedonia, Hungary and Albania.
The Moldova video follows hot on the heels of another fake video that was attributed to Euronews and spread online last week, alleging that Romania cautioned French authorities over interference in the Romanian presidential election runoff.
Romanian and French authorities, as well as Euronews, all denounced that video and its contents as false.
The Moldovan president's office, the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Interpol did not immediately respond to our requests for comment. We will update this article when we hear from them.
The European Commission on Tuesday permitted Poland to repurpose nearly €6 billion in post-COVID funds to finance defence projects, when the college of commissioners endorsed the Polish request by written procedure.
"Poland will be the first to invest billions from the KPO (National Recovery Plan) in security and defence. Successful negotiations paved the way, now other countries are trying to follow in our footsteps," Jan Szyszko, the country's secretary of state in the ministry of funds and regional policy, wrote on X following the Commission's decision.
Warsaw was allocated nearly €60bn - of which 25.3 billion are grants - of the Commission's €650 billion plan Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) aimed at kickstarting COVID-stricken economies across the EU.
But the facility, which came into force in early 2021, came with strings attached.
The funds, doled out in both grants and loans, had to be poured into sectors and initiatives aimed at making the bloc's economy more resilient, sustainable, green, and digital; member states had to submit National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) outlining reforms and investments; the money had to be spent by the end of 2026.
The funds however proved difficult for some member states to digest with bureaucratic bottlenecks, shifting political priorities, and high inflation further slowing the process.
Member states were however allowed to submit revised plans, which is what Poland did on 30 January, in which it proposed the introduction of a new measure to create an Investment-Equity injection into the Security and Defence Fund.
The Commission endorsed the measure, with a spokesperson telling Euronews that defence-related activities can align with the instrument's objective of promoting sustainable growth and enhancing the resilience of member states provided they do not violate the limitations outlined in Article 41(2) of the Treaty on the European Union.
Article 41 regulates the financing of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, which includes the Union's defence policy. Paragraph 2 stipulates that expenditures resulting from measures with military or defence implications are expressly excluded from financing from the EU's budget.
"RRF support for the defence sector may include financing the expansion of industrial capacity, the technological development of defence products, as well as investments that serve both civilian and military purposes, such as transport infrastructure," the Commission spokesperson also said.
Defence has become a key priority for the EU following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine which starkly highlighted the deficiencies and dependencies of the European defence industrial base and the glaring gaps in the bloc's military capabilities.
The Commission has put forward a plan to unlock hundreds of billions of euros into the defence sector to fill those gaps and turbocharge European defence manufacturing. The main financial firepowers of this 'Readiness 2030' plan reside in more fiscal flexibility for member states and Commission-issued loans for defence projects.
But the EU executive is also backing repurposing funds from other EU programmes, such as cohesion funds, which aim to reduce economic and social disparities across the 27 member states.
Meanwhile NATO allies, of which 23 are EU member states, are currently negotiating a revision to the alliance's defence spending target, currently set at 2% of GDP. Washington has called for a 5% target.
French police have arrested around 20 people alleged to have been involved in a recent spate of kidnappings and kidnapping attempts against cryptocurrency bosses and their families.
The arrests took place on Monday and Tuesday, according to media outlet Franceinfo.
French media reported that half a dozen suspects were taken into custody on Tuesday in connection with the attempted kidnapping of the daughter of cryptocurrency boss Pierre Noizat earlier this month.
The attack, which took place in broad daylight on 13 May, shocked France. Assailants were filmed trying to kidnap Noizat's pregnant daughter, who was out for a walk with her partner and their child.
Tuesday's arrests came after a dozen other people were detained in the commune of Couëron, near the western French city of Nantes, on Monday.
In response to the increasing number of violent attacks against cryptocurrency professionals and their families, French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau convened an emergency meeting with industry leaders in mid-May.
During the meeting, Retailleau outlined ways of ensuring their security, including a plan to give them access to special emergency contact numbers.
"These serial kidnappings will be combated with specific tools, both immediate and short-term, to prevent, deter and hinder in order to protect the industry," Retailleau said after the meeting.
"The entire state apparatus is fully mobilised to track down the perpetrators and instigators of this violence and put them out of action", he added.