On Tuesday 10 June, Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius announced that the Commission would adopt “an ambitious defence simplification ‘omnibus’ project” on 17 June.
“Without this simplification, nothing else in defence readiness will be possible to achieve. Defence readiness will not be ramped up by the picture of aggregated demand or by all the efforts to ramp up financial resources, if traditional ‘red tape’, which maybe is fit for peacetime, will kill industrial efforts to ramp-up production”, he said in a speech to the European Security and Defence Summit in Brussels.
The Commissioner pointed out that the ‘omnibus’ included specific defence legislation, such as the Directive on defence procurement and the Directive on intra-EU transfers of defence products. “We intend to give more flexibility to Member States in common procurements, more flexibility on framework agreements, and we intend to facilitate innovation procurement”, he explained.
In addition, the Commission wants to facilitate access to the European Defence Fund.
Other EU rules “affecting” defence preparedness should also be affected by the ‘omnibus’, with Mr Kubilius citing the need for faster authorisations, simplified reporting requirements, competition rules and sustainable finance.
“We will make sure to keep the balance between the original purpose and today’s needs of defence readiness”, he explained. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)