The European Union announced on Thursday that it had, for the first time, financed the joint purchase of arms by the 27, most of which were for Ukraine. The EU had already financed arms purchases to help kyiv, but outside its budget, thanks to an ad hoc financial instrument.
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With our correspondent in Brussels, Pierre Benazet
The European Commission is using for the first time the EDIRPA mechanism set up because of the war in Ukraine, intended to strengthen theEuropean defense industry through common public procurement. “This is the first time we have used the EU budget to support Member States in joint purchasing» of weapons, announced this November 14 the Vice-President of the European Commission, Margrethe Vestager.
The Europeans have already started since 2022 to buy weapons in favor ofUkraine and had launched specific projects to be able to do this jointly and ensure continuous delivery of weapons systems and munitions. But each time, they had to find specific mechanisms to do it. In this case, five projects were selected, representing 300 million euros of anti-aircraft defenses, 155 mm shells and six-wheel drive personnel carriers.
A strong signal sent to Washington
The use of the European Union’s current budget sends a strong political signal at a time when continued support from the United States is being called into question by the upcoming arrival of Donald Trump at the White House. Seeing the Commission and the European Union get involved in arms projects would have been considered impossible three years ago and this announcement proves the determination of Europeans to finally take their defense into their own hands.
After years of underinvestment in defense, two thirds of European allies within NATO reach and exceed the threshold of 2% in military spending, the prize going to the Baltic countries and especially to Poland whose military spending reach 4.12% of its GDP.
The Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is currently on the front line of a diplomatic offensive to support Ukraine and he will be able to rely on the future head of European diplomacy, the Estonian Kaja Kallas for the construction of a new European political-strategic posture which would make it possible to compensate for the threat that the re-election of Donald Trump poses to the maintenance of the American security guarantee.
Also readThe European Union’s plan to rebuild its defense industry