Brussels, 15/01/2026 (Agence Europe) – On Thursday 15 January, the European Commission announced that it had approved the investment plans submitted by eight Member States - Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Spain, Croatia, Cyprus, Portugal and Romania - out of the nineteen EU countries that made use of the European SAFE loan instrument to increase investment in the defence sector (see EUROPE 13763/2).
“Now it is urgent for the Council to approve these plans to allow fast disbursement. And if things go fast, we could set the record that from the proposal of ‘SAFE’ in the College till disbursement, we just needed one year”, declared the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.The Council has four weeks to assess and adopt the national plans, after which the Commission expects to be able to make a pre-financing payment to the eight Member States next March.
The other national defence plans should be approved in the coming weeks.
Unlike the national post-Covid-19 recovery plans, the national ‘SAFE’ plans are not public. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion with Camille-Cerise Gessant)