The European Commission proposed on Tuesday to strengthen the European defense industry through a new instrument for the joint purchase of weapons, making available 500 million euros from the EU budget for the period between 2022 and 2024.
Today we are taking a historic step in the integration of European defense. As the war rages on Europe’s borders, we are responding to the call of the EU Heads of State and Government, presenting this Tuesday a new instrument to support, at European level, the joint acquisition of arms”, said the European Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton. at a press conference in Brussels.
The commissioner has underlined that this proposal aims to “create an incentive, through the EU budget, to Member States buy together” defense equipment“in addition to helping replenish some of the stock [dos Estados-membros] after the arms transfer to Ukraine.”
Member States have been using [para fornecer a Kiev] its reserves of ammunition, light and heavy artillery, anti-aircraft and anti-tank defense systems, and even tanks and armored vehicles. This has created a de facto vulnerability, which must now be addressed urgently”, explained Breton, who welcomed the fact that “the defense of Europe” is taking “great steps forward”.
The Commission recalls that it is “fulfilling its commitment to create a short-term Community instrument that strengthens European defense industrial capabilities through common acquisitions by EU Member States”, the need for which it recognized in a communication last month May on defense investment shortfalls.
The proposed instrument, in response to the European Council’s request, “seeks to respond to the most urgent and critical needs for defense products resulting from Russia’s aggression against Ukraine” and, according to Brussels, “will encourage the Member States, with a spirit of solidarity, to be purchased in common” and “facilitate access by all member states to urgently needed defense products”.
Likewise, “it will avoid competition between Member States for the same products and facilitate cost savings”, while promoting interoperability and allowing the European Defense Technological and Industrial Base to “better adjust and increase its manufacturing capabilities” to provide the necessary products.
The European Commission specifies that this instrument “shall support actions by consortia made up of at least three Member States” and “the eligible actions may involve new defense acquisition projects or the extension of those that have been launched since the beginning of the war” in Ukraine.
On May 18, the Commission had adopted a communication commissioned by European leaders at the Versailles summit held last March in view of the weaknesses of the European defense sector, proposing a series of measures to strengthen the industrial and technological base of the European defense, recommending from the outset to the 27 that move towards joint acquisitions, a proposal now formalized with an incentive of 500 million euros.
Brussels highlights that it adopted this proposal for a regulation with high priority, given the “urgency of the situation”, and says that it expects “a rapid adoption” by the Council and the European Parliament, “in order to be able, by the end of 2022, to support to the member states to respond to your most urgent needs and criticism of defense products in a cooperative manner”.
Portugal is one of the countries that has defended this solution, with the Prime Minister, António Costa, stressing in one of the recent summits the importance of the 27 developing “a set of joint investments or joint acquisition processes or joint research networks ”, in order to “gain synergies” and create “integrated value chains in the European market, which help to strengthen the economic base of Europe in a decentralized way, in all the Member States”.
Portugal naturally wants to be an active partner of the Union in building this strategic autonomy in the production capacity of these materials”, he said.
The Commission also reiterated its commitment to propose, foreseeably still in the third quarter of this year, a Regulation on the European Defense Investment Program (EDIP), “which will serve as an anchor for future joint development and contracting projects of high common interest for the security of the Member States and the Union”.
Source: Observadora
