EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini stated, on Tuesday 6 March, her intention to present a European Peace Facility “in the coming months” (see EUROPE 11926). According to a European source, this could be presented in May.
Speaking to the press after the Foreign Affairs Council in defence formation, during which the ministers requested that she continue her work, Mogherini explained: “I believe we need an instrument for financing military and defence spending that cannot currently be covered by the European budget. This would allow the EU to provide support, strengthened capability and assistance to the armed forces of our partners”. She went on to add: “The basic idea on which I have proposed work is to have an off-budget instrument as, for instruments based on the budget, there are strict legal limits and this instrument would allow rapid, predictable and flexible funding, with a strong political decision, for things which cannot be funded with budgetary instruments”. According to the national source, the fund would allow circumvention of “Article 41.2 of the EU Treaty” whereby the community budget cannot fund “spending relating to operations with military involvement or in the defence field”.
By way of example, Mogherini spoke of the African Peace Facility. The new Facility, however, should have “broader reach and be geographically wider and the EU would have the autonomous ability to decide where, when and how to finance (the) partners. Also, the fund could be extended to cover EU military operations”, she added.
The fund’s financing could be complex. Review of the Athena mechanism, which ensures funding of common costs of EU military operations, has been stumbling for the past few years. The EU, via the instrument contributing to stability and peace (IcSP), already finances measures for strengthening security and developing capabilities (CBSD) of military actors in partner countries outside recurrent military spending, the provision of arms and munitions and lethal equipment as well as combat training (see EUROPE 118932). (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)