In its budget plan for 2021-2027, the European Commission places emphasis on defence, with a defence and security budget of €20.7 billion over seven years (in current prices).
The Commission thus proposes to earmark €13 billion for the European defence fund, i.e. higher than the annual €1.5 billion set out in the EU policy paper on the future of EU finances, published in June 2017 (see EUROPE 11818).
Out of the €13 billion, €4.1 billion will be for research (the European Commission was proposing €500 million annually when the fund was first announced) and €8.9 billion for capability development (compared with the proposal of €1 billion annually when the fund was announced) (see EUROPE 11803).
According to the Commission, the fund will have three aims. The first will be to promote the competitiveness and innovation capacity of the defence industry throughout the Union by supporting cooperation action at every stage of the industrial cycle, from research to the development phase. The second will be on the support and optimisation of cross-border cooperation between companies, and the third on support for collaborative projects throughout the research and development cycle, geared to defence-related products and technologies.
The fund will be coordinated with other Commission and High Representative work in the field of defence, especially projects implemented in the context of permanent structured cooperation (PESCO) on defence, as well as defence activities implemented via the European Peace Facility, an extra-budgetary instrument with €10.5 billion.
In addition to the European defence fund, the Commission trusts that €6.5 billion will be devoted to adapting the EU’s strategic transport infrastructures to military mobility, within the framework of the Connecting Europe mechanism. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)