EU proposes $1.6 billion plan to prop up defense industry

PARIS — The European Union’s executive branch has proposed a €1.5 billion (U.S. $1.6 billion) plan to boost defense production by promoting joint military purchases among the member states.

The European Commission on Tuesday presented its European Defence Industry Program aimed at bolstering a sector that has struggled to ramp up production in the face Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine , which began in February 2022.

“The war is at our borders,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said during a news conference in Brussels on Tuesday. “Russia’s war of aggression has brought a great sense of urgency to step up our industrial defense capacities.”

With each of the EU’s 27 member states in charge of its defense budget, economic nationalism has often pushed countries such as France and Germany to buy local rather than European. The resulting fragmentation has a price: A European Parliament report in 2019 found the costs of duplication in security and defense policy among the bloc are at least €22 billion a year.

“In the last two years, we have faced the situation of a defense industry without sufficient production capacity to meet the sharp increase of demand,” the European Commission’s executive vice president, Margrethe Vestager, said at the news conference. “We have been vividly confronted with a well-known structural fragmentation along national borders that limits economies of scale, and creates mistrust, while preventing genuine competition between industrial players. This entails major inefficiencies, and insufficient value for taxpayer’s money.”

Funding for the European Defence Industry Program, or EDIP, runs from 2025 to 2027 and serves a bridge until the bloc negotiates a new long-term budget, said Thierry Breton, the EU commissioner for the internal market.

The commission suggested profits generated by frozen Russian assets could be used to fund support for Ukraine within the framework of EDIP, subject to a decision by the European Council. EU leaders meet in the council, which, together with the European Parliament, adopts European legislation.

The program would extend a regulation to incentivize joint procurement by member states in the EU’s defense industry, offering aid from the common budget to partially reimburse joint purchases. The commission also proposed continued financial support to boost Europe’s defense-industrial capacity.

The plan called for a new legal framework for joint European armament programs that includes favorable access to funding, simplified rules and potential waivers of value-added tax. Under the proposed plan, Ukraine would be able to participate in common procurement efforts.

The commission is inviting member states to spend at least 50% of their defense procurement budgets in the EU by 2030, and 60% by 2035. The union’s executive arm is also asking countries to collaboratively buy at least 40% of defense equipment by 2030.

From February 2022 to June 2023, EU states spent more than €100 billion on defense acquisitions, according to Vestager, who said almost 80% was spent outside the EU, with the U.S. alone accounting for more than 60%. She said spending that sort of money outside the bloc is no longer sustainable.

She added that while the EDIP budget “is not a lot of money” when it comes to defense, the funds can work as an incentive to bring together member states.

“The real funding for a stronger defense comes from member states, and that funding will increase over the years to come,” Vestager said. “What we can do here is to enable that funding to be spent in a better way, that we get more value for money, and that more, relatively speaking, is being spent in Europe.”

Another proposal is for a fund to fix supply chain bottlenecks in the EU’s defense industry, focused particularly on helping small and medium-sized companies with debt and equity financing. The commission plans to ask the governance bodies of the European Investment Bank to this year review lending policies, which currently limit defense investments to dual-purpose activities.

The commission proposed the creation of a defense-industrial readiness board that would be a forum for EU member states, and for the commission itself to define EU-level priorities to coordinate and smooth out countries’ procurement plans.

EDIP also includes measures to allow priority purchasing of civilian and military equipment in case the European Council declares a supply or security crisis, according to Breton. The council shot down a similar measure included in last year’s commission plan to boost EU ammunition production , and Breton said he hopes “this time it will pass.”

Breton added that the commission has developed plans to finance industrial sites that are ready to ramp up arms production if necessary, with EU funding to share the risk with industry .

The European ammunition industry increased production capacity by 50% since the start of the war in Ukraine, according to Borrell.

Breton said the EU is currently providing a little more than 80,000 artillery shells a month to Ukraine.

Borrell added that in addition to EU donations, Ukraine has purchased more than 350,000 shells from the European defense industry through direct contracts.

What matters now is that the EU defense-industrial base grows rapidly so Russian President Vladimir Putin understands “we are extremely serious,” Breton said.

He added that European defense production will not only match that of Russia — “we will do it much better.”

Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.

巴黎——欧盟执行机构提出了一项15亿欧元（16亿美元）的计划，旨在通过促进成员国之间的联合军事采购来提高国防生产。

欧盟委员会周二公布了其欧洲国防工业计划，旨在加强该行业。面对俄罗斯自 2022 年 2 月开始的对乌克兰的全面入侵，该行业一直难以提高产量。

欧盟外交与安全政策高级代表何塞普·博雷尔周二在布鲁塞尔举行的新闻发布会上表示：“战争已经逼近我们的边境。俄罗斯的侵略战争让我们更加迫切地需要加强国防工业能力。”

欧盟27个成员国各自负责国防预算，经济民族主义往往促使法国和德国等国倾向于购买本国产品而非欧洲产品。由此产生的碎片化代价高昂：欧洲议会2019年的一份报告指出，欧盟内部安全和国防政策的重复建设每年至少造成220亿欧元的损失。

“过去两年，我们面临着国防工业产能不足以满足需求激增的局面，”欧盟委员会执行副主席玛格丽特·维斯塔格在新闻发布会上表示。“我们深刻地感受到，沿国界线存在的结构性碎片化限制了规模经济，造成了不信任，阻碍了工业企业之间的真正竞争。这导致了严重的效率低下，也造成了纳税人资金的浪费。”

欧盟内部市场专员蒂埃里·布雷顿表示，欧洲防务工业计划（EDIP）的资金从 2025 年到 2027 年持续发放，起到过渡作用，直到欧盟就新的长期预算进行谈判。

欧盟委员会建议，冻结的俄罗斯资产所产生的收益可用于在欧洲发展和投资伙伴关系（EDIP）框架内为乌克兰提供支持，但需经欧洲理事会决定。欧盟领导人在理事会举行会议，理事会与欧洲议会共同通过欧洲立法。

该计划将扩大一项旨在激励欧盟成员国在国防工业领域开展联合采购的法规的适用范围，并提供来自共同预算的援助，以部分报销联合采购费用。欧盟委员会还提议继续提供财政支持，以提升欧洲的国防工业能力。

该计划呼吁建立新的欧洲联合军备项目法律框架，其中包括优惠的资金获取渠道、简化的规则以及可能豁免增值税。根据该计划，乌克兰将能够参与联合采购。

欧盟委员会邀请成员国到2030年将其国防采购预算的至少50%用于欧盟内部采购，到2035年达到60%。欧盟执行机构还要求各国到2030年合作采购至少40%的国防装备。

维斯塔格表示，从2022年2月到2023年6月，欧盟成员国在国防采购上花费了超过1000亿欧元，其中近80%的支出发生在欧盟以外，仅美国就占了60%以上。她指出，在欧盟以外花费如此巨额的资金已不再可持续。

她补充说，虽然国防领域的 EDIP 预算“不算多”，但这些资金可以起到激励作用，促使成员国团结起来。

韦斯塔格表示：“加强国防的真正资金来自成员国，而且未来几年这笔资金还会增加。我们现在能做的就是让这些资金得到更有效的利用，提高资金的使用效率，并确保相对而言，更多的资金用于欧洲。”

另一项提议是设立一项基金，用于解决欧盟国防工业供应链瓶颈问题，重点是帮助中小企业获得债务和股权融资。欧盟委员会计划要求欧洲投资银行的管理机构在今年审查其贷款政策，这些政策目前将国防投资限制在军民两用领域。

委员会提议设立一个国防工业准备委员会，作为欧盟成员国和委员会自身的一个论坛，以确定欧盟层面的优先事项，从而协调和规范各国的采购计划。

布雷顿表示，EDIP还包括一些措施，允许在欧洲理事会宣布出现供应或安全危机时优先采购民用和军用装备。理事会否决了去年欧盟委员会提出的旨在提高欧盟弹药产量的类似措施，布雷顿表示，他希望“这次能够获得通过”。

布雷顿补充说，欧盟委员会已经制定了计划，为那些准备在必要时提高武器产量的工业基地提供资金，欧盟将通过提供资金与工业界分担风险。

博雷尔表示，自乌克兰战争爆发以来，欧洲弹药行业的产能提高了 50%。

布雷顿表示，欧盟目前每月向乌克兰提供略多于 8 万枚炮弹。

博雷尔补充说，除了欧盟的捐赠外，乌克兰还通过直接合同从欧洲国防工业购买了超过35万枚炮弹。

布雷顿说，现在重要的是欧盟国防工业基础迅速发展，以便俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京明白“我们是极其认真的”。

他还补充说，欧洲的国防生产不仅会赶上俄罗斯——“我们会做得更好”。

鲁迪·鲁伊滕贝格是《防务新闻》的欧洲记者。他的职业生涯始于彭博新闻社，拥有报道科技、大宗商品市场和政治方面的经验。