Adopted in record time by the Council of the European Union, albeit bypassing the prerogatives of the European Parliament (see EUROPE 13649/23), the European ‘SAFE’ instrument for lending to 19 Member States to increase military spending is struggling to produce concrete results.
For several weeks now, the national plans of three EU countries - France, Hungary, and the Czech Republic - the last three still requiring the approval of the European Commission and ultimately the EU Council, have been the subject of negotiations between the capitals concerned and the EU institution.
Some believe that the French and Czech plans, with funding of €16.2 billion and €2 billion respectively, are technically finalised and have not been given the green light, so as not to isolate the Hungarian plan. Such an approach gives the Commission leverage to put pressure on the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, who is campaigning to stay in power in the parliamentary elections on 12 April, to lift his veto on both the 20th package of European sanctions against Russia and the EU loan to Ukraine for 2026 and 2027.
“The plans are not linked. We deal with each Member State on a case-by-case basis”, said Thomas Regnier, the European Commission’s defence spokesman, on Thursday 12 March. He said that approving these plans was “an absolute priority” for strengthening the EU’s security.
According to Mr Regnier, none of the three plans “has been rejected at this stage”. “For some plans, the amounts are not in line with what was initially approved by the European Commission. So there’s an adjustment to be made”, he added. This would be the case for the Hungarian plan, which is more expensive than the €16.2 billion pre-allocated. When contacted, the authorities did not respond to Agence Europe’s requests.
In addition, the spokesman said, “for other plans, we need further information before we can approve (them)”. This would be the case with the French plan: the Commission would like more details on certain projects, while Paris is said to be hiding behind ‘defence secrecy’.
When contacted, a French source expressed confidence, as the national plan had been “technically validated”.
Another difficulty linked to the ‘SAFE’ instrument, this time in Poland. Determined to obstruct the action of the ‘Tusk’ government, the conservative president, Karol Nawrocki, aims to block the adoption of Polish legislation implementing the ‘SAFE’ instrument, preferring national funding to a European loan to finance the planned €43.7 billion aid (see EUROPE 13823/18).
For the 16 national plans already approved (see EUROPE 13810/27, 13805/36), financing agreements are being negotiated, with a view to the first disbursements in April.
Andrzej Halicki for the extension of the ‘SAFE’ instrument. In Parliament, Andrzej Halicki (EPP, Polish) advocates extending the SAFE instrument.
“The ‘SAFE’ programme must be implemented as soon as possible. But that’s not enough: it needs to be extended. We need much more funding to produce anti-drone, anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems, to deploy these systems, and also to produce the equipment, munitions and missiles we need to protect ourselves”, he explained to a few journalists on Tuesday 10 March, on the fringes of the Parliament plenary session in Strasbourg.
According to Mr Halicki, the Europeans should not be forced to halt the deployment of their anti-drone and anti-aircraft systems because the funds allocated by ‘SAFE’ have run out. So “a second ‘SAFE’ programme or similar programmes should be implemented”, argued the MEP. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion, with Camille-Cerise Gessant and Lionel Changeur)