On Tuesday 22 April, the European Commission proposed targeted changes to existing EU funding programmes in order to “mobilise investment in defence and offer greater flexibility and simplification to accelerate investment”.
On Tuesday, the European Commission spokesman was unable to say how much these changes would generate for defence.
The proposal for a regulation presented by the Commission amends the regulation on the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) as well as the regulations for other programmes covered by STEP: the European Defence Fund (EDF), the Digital Europe Programme (DEP) and Horizon Europe (HE). It will also amend the Act in Support of Ammunition Production (ASAP) and the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) in order to direct EU funds more towards the defence industry and technologies, according to the Commission.
The proposal extends the scope of STEP to cover defence-related technologies and products, in particular those identified as priority capabilities in the recent Defence White Paper. This will enable the STEP label to be awarded to projects selected under the European Defence Fund, Horizon Europe and the Digital Europe Programme. This broader scope should also stimulate investment in defence-critical technologies as part of the cohesion policy financed by the EU budget, in particular under the specific objectives of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Cohesion Fund.
The modification of the Horizon Europe programme will make it possible to support technologies with potential for dual-use applications under the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator, as well as to provide equity support for technologies focused on defence applications intended for scale-up. According to the Commission, the proposal will boost the EIC envelope by €210 million from the unused amounts and flows of the Horizon 2020 EIC pilot project.
The Digital Europe Programme (DEP) should also expand to dual-use applications. This will provide crucial support for defence technologies, in particular for the development and operation of artificial intelligence ‘Gigafactories’.
The regulation introduces additional flexibility in the use of EU funding in order to strengthen a robust and competitive European defence industry. In particular, the regulation includes a ‘landing clause’ within the European Defence Fund (EDF) and the Act in Support of Ammunition Production (ASAP). This provision allows Member States, on a fully voluntary basis, to transfer resources allocated to them under cohesion policy funds to these two programmes. “Since that Regulation has shown its usefulness to develop new production capacities of powder/propellant, explosives, shells, testing capacity, and missiles all across the Union, it is appropriate to ensure that its application is extended until 31 December 2026”, the proposal also stresses.
Finally, support for military mobility and dual-use digital infrastructure is enhanced through changes to the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). According to the Commission, this will create more favourable conditions for Member States to transfer cohesion funds to the CEF for dual-use transport infrastructure projects and will extend the CEF's digital programme to support dual-use digital capabilities.
A general simplification package should be presented by the Commission in June 2025.
See the proposal for a regulation: https://aeur.eu/f/ghh (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)