On Tuesday 9 September, the European Commission unveiled the provisional allocation of preferential loans for the 19 European Union countries that have requested funds from the €150 billion European ‘SAFE’ instrument (see EUROPE 13649/23).
Based on preliminary information on the projects that the participating countries wish to implement, the distribution of funds would be as follows: - €43.73 billion for Poland; - 16.68 billion for Romania; - 16.22 billion for France; - 16.22 billion for Hungary; - 14.90 billion for Italy; - 8.34 billion for Belgium; - 6.38 billion for Lithuania; - 5.84 billion for Portugal; - 5.68 billion for Latvia; - 3.26 billion for Bulgaria; - 2.66 billion for Estonia; - 2.32 billion for Slovakia; - 2.06 billion for Czechia; - 1,7 billion for Croatia; - 1.18 billion for Cyprus; - 1 billion for Finland; - 1 billion for Spain; - 787.7 million for Greece; - 46.8 million for Denmark.
The ‘SAFE’ instrument is not just about spending more in the defence sector, but about “spending better, together, and more European” through grouped purchases, said the Vice-President of the European Commission, Henna Virkunnen. She pointed out that this will enable the participating Member States to continue their military support for Ukraine.
For the European Commissioner for Defence, Andrius Kubilius, the provisional breakdown of the loans reflects an “equal geographical spread, not only eastern-border countries”. It is now up to the countries concerned to present, “by the end of November”, an investment plan detailing the projects they wish to finance, in order to fine-tune the provisional allocation of loans, he added, with the aim of signing financing agreements with these countries in the first quarter of 2026.
“Now implementation, implementation, implementation”, insisted the European Commissioner. In his view, Hungary’s decision to use the ‘SAFE’ instrument means that it understands the type of threat Europe is facing, since “there is only one”.
See the Communication from the European Commission: https://aeur.eu/f/icf (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)