On Tuesday 9 January, the European Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton, called for a €100 billion defence fund.
“To make sure all the industry works more and more together, we need to have the incentives”, he told a conference at the European Parliament organised by Renew Europe, adding that “we need to have a huge defence fund, to help – to accelerate even – probably in the matter of €100 billion”.
The European Commission is due to propose its new ‘European Defence Industrial Strategy’ (EDIS) on 27 February.
Mr Breton also returned to the objective of sending one million munitions to Ukraine within 12 months, i.e. March 2024. He believes it is entirely possible to achieve this target “by March or April”. Several defence ministers, like the EU High Representative, were more cautious about meeting the target (see EUROPE 13292/1).
The Commissioner was even more ambitious. According to him, by the end of the year, the European industry will be able to supply 1.3 to 1.4 million rounds of ammunition per year. “But that's not enough, we have to make sure that our forecasts more or less match Russian production”, he explained, adding that it would be possible “within 18 months to 2 years” to reach Russian levels. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)