3 days ago
Commission pitches €131bn for defence and space in EU budget
The European Commission has proposed to earmark €131 billion for the EU's various defence and space industry programmes in the next seven-year budget on Wednesday.
The proposed defence and space budget lines will fall under a new envelope dubbed the 'Resilience and Security, Defence Industry and Space' package.
Until just an hour before the announcement, defence – along with 'Clean transition and decarbonisation' in the text – was the final budget line still under negotiation, sources involved in the talks told Euractiv.
The Commission's overall proposal is €2 trillion, or 1.26% of the EU's gross national index.
Compared to the current budget, defence and space spending would increase five-fold, Budget Commissioner Piotr Serafin said.
The previous budget, set in 2018, allocated €10 billion for defence industry policy (or €12.5 billion when adjusted for inflation). However, this sum has changed since then, and notably does not include spending on space.
The long-term defence industry programme, EDIP, and the innovation programme, the EDF, would fall under the €451 billion so-called European Competitiveness Fund (ECF), a new umbrella structure unifying up to 14 existing budget lines.
This setup is designed to give the Commission greater flexibility in shifting funds between strategic priorities.
Politicians and industry have repeatedly floated a €100 billion target for EU defence industry policies. The Commission's proposal surpasses that target.
This is a developing story.
Sarantis Michalopoulos contributed to reporting
(ap, jp, cp)
