MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION on the white paper on the future of European defence
5.3.2025 - (2025/2565(RSP))
pursuant to Rule 136(2) of the Rules of Procedure
Yannis Maniatis, Sven Mikser
on behalf of the S&D Group
See also joint motion for a resolution RC-B10-0146/2025
B10‑0150/2025
European Parliament resolution on the white paper on the future of European defence
The European Parliament,
– having regard to Rule 136(2) of its Rules of Procedure,
A. whereas the EU is currently under attack, with hybrid incidents inside its borders, a large-scale war in its neighbourhood, and a realignment of global powers, all presenting real risks to the security of the EU and its citizens and requiring immediate, ambitious and decisive action;
B. whereas the Commissioner for Defence and Space and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy are expected to present a white paper on the future of European defence on 19 March 2025, which should serve as a roadmap for such action;
1. Urges the EU to act immediately to ensure its ability to protect its citizens, deter its enemies, support its allies and become a powerful defender of the rules-based international order and the principles of the European security architecture; urges the EU and its Member States to define a coherent, comprehensive and actionable strategy to achieve this; expects the Commission to present a proposal for such a strategy in its white paper on the future of European defence;
2. Is firmly convinced that a united EU can overcome all the challenges it faces and become a global power for peace, security, human rights and sustainable development, but that this requires a strong EU budget or additional European financial instruments, a reliable and sovereign industrial basis, a full spectrum of European military capabilities, including strategic enablers, and an integrated command allowing all national forces to act under a unified structure at the service of the EU, alone or in complementarity with other allied forces;
3. Believes that the strategy must include a renewed threat assessment, reflecting the recent unprecedented changes in the EU’s geopolitical context, a plan for supporting Ukraine against Russia’s war of aggression, as a key action to defend the EU’s values and protect its citizens and territory, a roadmap to close the capability gap, restore deterrence and enable autonomous EU action, and a plan to finance such vital transformations in the EU’s capacity to act;
4. Stresses its firm commitment to continued close cooperation with NATO to reinforce deterrence, collective defence and interoperability; calls nonetheless for the development of a fully-capable European Pillar of NATO able to act autonomously whenever necessary;
Assessing our threats and challenges
5. Is convinced that the EU needs to define its foreign policy goals and strategic defence doctrine, identifying the most pressing challenges, systemic threats and rival actors, and to shape its defence strategy accordingly;
6. Strongly believes that Europe is today facing the most profound military threat to its territorial integrity since the Second World War; believes that Russia and its allies are currently the most significant threat to our security and that of EU candidate countries and partners, and reiterates its condemnation in the strongest terms of Russia’s unprovoked, illegal and unjustified war of aggression against Ukraine; notes, however, that the instability in our southern neighbourhood, the rise in Chinese military power, the increased aggressiveness of some middle powers and the behaviour of the Trump administration, which appears ready to jeopardise transatlantic cooperation on common security and make a deal with the Russian aggressor at the expense of Ukrainian and European security, which are one and the same, must also be fully taken into consideration;
7. Highlights the fact that on assessments by several European intelligence services, Russia will be ready to attack EU territory within 3 to 10 years, particularly if there is a ceasefire in its aggression against Ukraine that does not lead to a just and lasting peace; notes with deep concern that Russia has expanded its armed forces and gained valuable battlefield experience, unlike any European forces with the exception of those of Ukraine, aims to have a 1.5 million-strong military by 2026 and has significantly ramped up its armaments production, making it an extremely worrisome threat for the EU’s security and for peace in Europe and globally;
8. Strongly condemns Russia’s escalating hybrid warfare tactics within the EU and its neighbourhood, which encompass both non-physical and physical actions, including attacks on critical infrastructure and disruption of elections; highlights that Russia’s strategic doctrine includes significant conventional conflict in its conception and execution of hybrid war and conceives hybrid wars as the main line of future military development, rather than a temporary phenomenon; calls for the EU to immediately and significantly step up its ability to defend, attribute and punish hybrid warfare waged within its territory and that of candidate countries;
9. Condemns all countries that are providing military equipment, financial support or any other form of assistance to Russia, thereby enabling and intensifying its ongoing aggression; warns of the very serious risks resulting from a widening of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine; is deeply concerned that the involvement of Iran and North Korea will provide them with important lessons to modernise their military capabilities, and may accelerate their paths towards nuclearisation;
10. Reaffirms its grave concerns about China’s increasing military investments and capabilities; expresses serious concerns about the renewed Chinese and Russian commitment to further strengthen their military ties and condemns China’s supplying of components and equipment to Moscow’s military industry;
11. Notes with concern the increase in both intra and inter-state conflicts in the EU’s wider neighbourhood, in part driven by the hegemonic ambitions of several middle powers, the presence of aggressive non-state actors and by the fragility of several states; also notes that this leads to clear threats to the EU’s security, namely by fostering terrorism and increasing the destabilisation of populations, often forcing their displacement;
12. Is deeply concerned by the recent actions of the Trump administration, which distance it from the values that have been at the core of the United States’ relationship with the EU, namely democracy, the rule of law, freedom of speech and support for the rules-based international order; regrets, in this regard, the votes of the US Government, aligned with the Russian Government, in the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council on resolutions about the third anniversary of Russia’s war of aggression, as well as the unilateral decision to end Russia’s international isolation and to propose a normalisation of relations between them; strongly condemns any attempt to blame Ukraine, the victim, for the actions of the aggressor, Russia; urges the US Government to maintain maximum pressure on Russia until the latter agrees to a just and lasting peace for Ukraine; rejects any attempt by the US Government to impose a new security architecture on the EU and its Member States, and reiterates that any negotiation of such a security architecture must take place with the EU at the table; is deeply concerned by the actions of the US Government towards NATO and the doubts raised regarding the United States’ commitment to the security of the European continent; supports the peace process for Ukraine launched by European leaders, together with Ukraine, on 2 March 2025 in London, which seeks a just and lasting peace for Ukraine, and must be based on full respect for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, the principles of international law, accountability for war crimes and the crime of aggression, Russian payments for the massive damage caused in Ukraine and credible security guarantees for Ukraine;
13. Concurs with the assessment of the Strategic Compass that the EU is surrounded by instability and conflicts, but notes that in the meantime the situation has changed dramatically; believes that, altogether, these developments produce an encirclement of Europe that reduces its scope for the pursuit of democratically defined and autonomous interests and values, and that this requires an immediate response; recognises the evolving nature of global security threats and therefore calls for the EU to conduct more frequent threat assessments, as they are the precondition for a realistic and successful planning of capabilities and operations;
Supporting Ukraine
14. Urges the EU and its Member States, together with international partners and NATO allies, to immediately increase their military support to Ukraine in order to assist it in exercising its legitimate right to self-defence against the Russian war of aggression according to Article 51 of the UN Charter; calls, in this regard, for the swift adoption of the next military aid package, which should be the largest to date and reflect the level of ambition this juncture calls for; calls on the Member States, international partners and NATO allies to lift all restrictions on the use of Western weapons systems delivered to Ukraine against military targets in Russian territory; calls for a significant increase in the financing of military support to Ukraine; calls on the Member States, together with their G7 partners, to immediately seize all frozen Russian assets in order to maintain and step up the EU’s response to Ukraine’s military needs;
15. Urges the Member States to immediately engage in joint procurement of additional capabilities, in particular ammunition for air defence and artillery, as well as any capabilities in which US assistance has played a key role thus far; further urges them to plan in advance for a possible sudden stop in US military assistance;
16. Welcomes the continued support for the Ukrainian Armed Forces through the EU Military Assistance Mission in support of Ukraine, which has already trained more than 60 000 Ukrainian troops, and calls on the mission to continue training as many troops as possible; stresses the importance of specific training modules aimed at developing the capacities of existing and future officers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces across all levels and in accordance with their needs; emphasises that the mission should also act as a platform for the exchange of best practices that would ensure that European forces also benefit from the lessons learnt on the battlefield by the Ukrainian Armed Forces; calls on the Member States to further expand training operations for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including training operations in Ukrainian territory;
17. Insists on the paramount importance of cooperation with, and the integration of, the Ukrainian defence industry into the EU’s defence technological and industrial base (EDTIB), which offers clear advantages for both sides, and calls for speedier integration of the Ukrainian defence industry; recalls the importance of the European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP) to that effect, and highlights the urgency of properly financing EDIP’s Ukraine Support Instrument, which is currently not budgeted; calls on the Commission to include Ukraine and its defence industry in all its defence industrial programmes;
18. Praises the ‘Danish Model’ for support to Ukraine, which consists of procuring defence capabilities produced directly in Ukraine; urges the EU and its Member States to strongly support this model and to make full use of its potential, as there is an underutilisation of Ukraine’s defence industrial capacity, estimated at around 50 %, and it brings many advantages to both sides, such as cheaper equipment, speedier and safer logistics as well as greater ease of training and maintenance;
19. Calls for the EU and its Member States to actively work towards maintaining and achieving the broadest possible international support for Ukraine and identifying a peaceful solution to the war that must be based on full respect for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, the principles of international law, accountability for war crimes and the crime of aggression, and Russian payments for the massive damage caused in Ukraine; urges the EU and its Member States to participate in establishing robust future security guarantees for Ukraine;
Closing the capabilities gap and restoring deterrence
20. Strongly believes that strengthening Europe’s security and defence requires not just a simple increase in ambition and action, but a complete overhaul of the way we act and invest in our security and defence, such that from now on we plan, innovate, develop, purchase, maintain and deploy capabilities together, in a coordinated and integrated fashion, while making full use of the complementary competences of all actors in Europe, including NATO;
21. Calls on the Commission to come up with a complete programme for defence, including against hybrid attacks, ensuring that planning, research, development, procurement and management of capabilities are all done through a European lens, and that all EU funds are used as a stimulus to joint EU action, instead of perpetuating the present state of market fragmentation, divergent and incompatible capabilities, and superfluous and wasteful investments; considers EDIP to be a good step forward and as such calls for its swift adoption;
22. Recognises that the starting point must be a realistic assessment of the current capabilities and capability gap; calls on the Commission, with the support of the European Defence Agency and in cooperation with NATO, to identify critical defence capability gaps and shortfalls in the EU, in particular for strategic enablers, where the Member States have fallen behind and become dependent on non-European allies; furthermore, calls on the Commission to transform the capability gaps into clear industrial targets that can be the object of planning and programming and benefit from an industrial policy;
23. Declares the EDTIB to be a strategic asset of the EU, and as such considers that the Commission should be tasked with its mapping and monitoring, so as to safeguard the EU’s strengths, reduce its vulnerabilities, avoid crises, and provide it with an effective and efficient industrial policy; calls on the Commission to draw on the EU Military Committee’s expertise in the definition of defence industries’ priorities and the formulation of defence initiatives in order to ensure alignment between industrial capabilities and military needs; recalls the importance of ensuring that the EDTIB is present in all Member States, distributing the burden and the benefits equitably, and preventing its disruption by a targeted attack on a particular area;
24. Strongly believes that EU support for the production and procurement of defence products should focus on stimulating the EDTIB, increasing production volumes and ensuring the development of native European solutions for key capabilities, in particular for domains of action where we have so far relied on support from allies, and thus be oriented towards EU-based companies; rejects a scenario in which EU funds contribute to perpetuating or deepening dependences on non-European actors, whether for production of capabilities or their deployment; notes with concern that the vast majority of EU defence investment is diverted to defence industry players outside the EU; highlights that our investments should also contribute to bringing our European allies closer together, first and foremost Ukraine, but also Norway and the UK, finding synergies between complementary industrial strengths and bolstering the interoperability of our fighting forces; states, however, that joining common projects in defence and security requires a steadfast commitment to the EU’s values and norms and demands that any industrial partnerships with non-EU allies include strong safeguards on technology transfer and design authority, ensuring that we do not face restrictions on the use of the capabilities acquired; highlights that EU funds will provide opportunities for the defence industry, but also require a commitment to give priority to orders linked to ensuring European security and defence, in particular in times of crisis;
25. Urges the Member States to radically change the way they procure defence products, choosing common procurement by default, and to consider tasking the Commission with undertaking joint procurement on their behalf; considers that all products procured in the EU, particularly those supported by EU funds, must respect strong safeguards on technology transfer and design authority;
26. Welcomes all measures that allow a faster and more effective ramp-up of production of defence products in Europe, in particular those that are most needed for a land war; calls for a change in paradigm from a ‘flow’ approach to a ‘stock’ approach, with stock piles of materiel ready for a sustained increase in demand; notes, in this regard, the advantages offered by mechanisms such as advance purchase agreements, the establishment of ‘ever-warm’ facilities and the creation of defence readiness pools; calls on the Commission to support the Member States in developing wartime economic cooperation contingency plans with close partners to prepare for mutual support in the case of large-scale security crises involving them directly, and to deepen wartime economic dialogues with European and global partners;
27. Highlights that the EDTIB cannot thrive without a true single market for defence; emphasises, in this regard, the need for an effective regulatory framework aimed at encouraging innovation and cross-border cooperation in production, procurement and investment; insists on the need to remove barriers to market entry for defence products across the EU and calls on the Commission to act upon the results of the reviews of the Directives on the transfer of defence-related products[1] and defence procurement[2], considering the obstacles and costs imposed by the current fragmented framework for certification of defence products; calls on the Commission to propose a regulation for common rules on the certification of defence products and the creation of a European defence certification authority; underlines at the same time the importance of maintaining fruitful competition between different undertakings in the single market for defence; calls on the Commission to propose a regulation on the standardisation of defence products with binding industrial standards, taking advantage of the lessons learnt from the implementation of NATO defence standards;
28. Stresses the need for greater transparency and convergence at the national and European levels on arms exports; points out the need for the Member States to respect the EU Common Position on Arms Exports, while acknowledging their competences in their defence acquisition policies;
29. Underlines the importance of Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) in improving and harmonising the EU’s defence capabilities; reiterates its regret that Member States continue to not make full use of the PESCO framework; reiterates its call on the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the Member States, and with the involvement of the Commission, to assess projects and their potential regularly and comprehensively with a view to streamlining the current set of projects to a small set of priority projects; believes that priority projects must focus on reducing our dependencies regarding strategic enablers, such as battlefield command and control (C2), aerial and satellite intelligence, surveillance and recognition, satellite communication, air defence and suppression of enemy air defences, military mobility, strategic and tactical air transport and aerial refuelling, missile and deep strike capabilities, drone and anti-drone technologies, combat engineering and wet-gap crossing, and airborne electronic attack; believes that these could be European Defence Projects of Common Interest (EDPCI); regrets that Parliament is not in a position to properly scrutinise PESCO projects and calls for a change of paradigm for the governance of EDPCIs, such that Parliament is adequately involved; reiterates its call on the Member States to provide an implementation report on PESCO projects to Parliament at least twice a year;
30. Calls on the Commission to propose an EU drones package, focusing on drone and anti-drone systems and auxiliary capabilities, containing plans and funds to stimulate research and development, which should learn from the Ukrainian experience and be open to the participation of Ukraine’s highly innovative companies, as well as an industrial programme dedicated to the joint development, production and procurement of drones and anti-drone systems, and a regulation on the use of drones in civilian and military contexts;
31. Calls on the Commission to step up the ambition of the European Defence Fund, both quantitatively and qualitatively, and to better align its work programme with the capability planning exercises; recalls that the EU’s investment in defence research and innovation is much lower than that of its industrial competitors; considers that part of the investment from the European Defence Fund (EDF) should be designed to foster partnerships between academia, ministries of defence and the defence industry, and to the creation of dedicated research centres for defence; highlights the importance of promoting the participation of the most innovative high-tech companies from the civilian sector in the EDF;
32. Recalls that the EDTIB is currently facing a shortage of skilled workers, and calls on the Commission and the Member States to develop a strategy to train, upskill and reskill workers; considers that funding from defence programmes must be paired with requirements regarding benefits for workers and communities where the investments are located, making the European defence industry a source of high-quality jobs and earning the EDTIB broad support from the population;
33. Calls for the EU and its Member States to quickly improve the state of military mobility and logistics, removing all unnecessary obstacles that slow down the speed at which the EU can react to threats and deploy its forces;
34. Calls for the EU to develop a comprehensive set of instruments to detect, prevent and react to hybrid attacks and threats and protect the Union’s citizens and assets, including critical infrastructure, but also democratic institutions and processes; reiterates its call on the Member States, the European External Action Service and the Commission to consider the creation of a well-resourced and independent structure tasked with identifying, analysing and documenting foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) threats against the EU as a whole to increase situational awareness and threat intelligence sharing, and develop attribution capabilities and countermeasures in relation to FIMI;
35. Stresses the importance of enhanced intelligence sharing and information exchange among the Member States and EU institutions, including Parliament, to improve situational awareness and to be able to better anticipate and counter threats to collective security and define common lines of action under the common security and defence policy (CSDP), particularly in the area of crisis management; calls on the Member States to use the EU Intelligence Analysis Centre (EU INTCEN) as an effective intelligence-sharing body to share intelligence securely, formulate a common strategic culture and provide strategic information to better anticipate and respond to crises within and outside the EU; reiterates its call for the deployment of intelligence-gathering capacities in all CSDP missions and operations, which would provide information to the EU INTCEN, EU military staff, the EU’s Military Planning and Conduct Capability (MPCC) and the Civilian Planning and Conduct Capability;
36. Welcomes the Niinistö report and its recommendations for strengthening Europe’s civilian and military preparedness and resilience; supports the adoption of a whole-of-society approach to resilience, involving the active engagement of the EU institutions, the Member States, civil society and individual citizens in strengthening the Union’s security framework; urges the EU to increase the alignment of existing EU instruments and policies, as well as that between EU and national policies, pioneering a ‘preparedness in all policies’ approach to security and defence, ensuring they do not generate contradictory obligations or jeopardise overall defence objectives, especially during a security crisis; expects the upcoming EU strategy on preparedness to offer details of the implementation of the report;
Enabling autonomous EU action
37. Recalls that the Strategic Compass provides the EU and its Member States with a framework for strengthening the EU’s security and defence and for advancing towards a common forward-looking strategic culture; reiterates that the Strategic Compass’s ambitious aims and milestones can only be achieved with the corresponding political will, adequate financial contributions and openness to cooperation where necessary; calls for the Member States to take all the necessary steps and decisions and fully implement the Strategic Compass; reiterates its call to strengthen the EU-s MPCC, establishing it as the preferred command and control structure for EU military operations and providing it with adequate premises, staff, enhanced command and control, and effective communication and information systems for all CSDP missions and operations, including those of the Rapid Deployment Capacity; insists that the Rapid Deployment Capacity must achieve full operational capability in the first half of 2025 at the latest, with at least 5 000 troops; calls on the Member States to urgently pursue a more ambitious pace and scale of command integration and joint operational capability, with the goal of enabling the EU to conduct large-scale operations independently, without reliance on non-EU countries for any capability, including strategic enablers; stresses that the EU and its Member States cannot develop consistent foreign and defence policies without strong support for democratic and agile structures and decision-making processes; underlines that further institutional discussions on removing the unanimity requirement to enhance cooperation should be explored;
38. Underlines that in the current geopolitical context, the need for continuing to operationalise Article 42(7) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) on mutual assistance, ensuring solidarity among Member States, especially those whose geographical position leaves them directly exposed to imminent threats and challenges, regardless of whether or not they are NATO members, is of utmost importance; calls on the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy to present concrete steps towards developing a true EU solidarity policy, including by clarifying the practical arrangements in the event of a Member State triggering Article 42(7) TEU;
39. Notes that EU candidate countries are frequently the target of destabilisation campaigns, and thus calls for the EU to ensure them greater support, in order to preserve stability and security and increase defence cooperation, especially in the fight against disinformation and hybrid warfare; is concerned that otherwise it will act as an invitation to Russia to invade them before they finally join the EU;
40. Reiterates the importance of EU-NATO cooperation, as NATO remains, for those states that are members of it, an important pillar of their collective defence, such that EU-NATO cooperation should continue, in particular in areas such as information exchange, planning, military mobility and exchange of best practices; highlights that all EU-NATO cooperation must be mutually beneficial and inclusive and respect the EU’s capacity to act autonomously; remains concerned, in this respect, that Türkiye, a NATO member and EU candidate country, excludes Cyprus from cooperation with NATO, hampering an enhanced relationship between the EU and NATO;
41. Underlines the need for a strong EU defence pillar within NATO, able to act autonomously from, and in complementarity with, NATO, turning the transatlantic alliance into a more equal partnership, and granting the necessary security guarantees to the EU, its Member States and whoever else they deem it necessary to extend them to;
42. Considers it essential to formalise a security and defence partnership with the United Kingdom as a means of strengthening European security and the European pillar of NATO, in particular in the context of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine; underlines, in this regard, the importance of closer cooperation on information and intelligence sharing, military mobility, security and defence initiatives, crisis management, cyber defence, hybrid threats, FIMI and in jointly addressing shared threats;
43. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to ensure that all instruments of external action, including development aid and cooperation, are aligned with the EU’s security objectives, fostering resilient societies by promoting inclusive economic growth, good governance and human rights; emphasises the crucial role that diplomacy and development cooperation play alongside military efforts in ensuring long-term international security; underscores that sustainable peace cannot be achieved through military measures alone, but requires comprehensive strategies that address the root causes of instability, such as poverty, inequality, governance failures and climate change;
Financing our security and defence
44. Considers that, in order to be able to protect its citizens, deter its enemies, support its allies and become a powerful actor in the defence of a rules-based international order, the EU requires an immediate, substantial and sustained investment in security and defence, in particular at EU level, using a mix of public and private funds and incentivising better spending and better collective action; calls for the EU and the Member States to urgently agree on concrete financial solutions to finance security and defence-related investments; welcomes the ReArmEU initiative by the Commission as an important first step towards swift action;
45. Recalls that the Commission has estimated the funding needed at EUR 500 billion over the next 10 years (2025-2034), including EUR 400 billion to strengthen Member States’ defence capabilities and EUR 100 billion to support Ukraine; notes higher estimates, such as a Bruegel study referring to EUR 250 billion annually in the event that the United States withdraws its military presence from Europe; highlights that the cost of isolated action is much higher than the cost of joint action, and that the EU and its Member states can also increase their preparedness by making current investment more efficient and coordinated; highlights that the cost of non-preparedness and the consequent loss of autonomy and potential military defeat is much higher than the cost of acting decisively now;
46. Strongly supports increased investments in our security and defence to ensure that the EU and its Member States are able to face all types of threats, from hybrid to conventional, and establish strong deterrence, while reducing dependences; notes that insecurity, social exclusion and poverty are persistently weaponised by our enemies, as they make large swaths of people more vulnerable to hostile propaganda and anti-democratic narratives; demands therefore that the increased investments in our security and defence come on top of the important investments in social cohesion and welfare, and not instead of them; calls instead for a comprehensive EU investment strategy, based on a permanent fiscal capacity that addresses both vulnerabilities in military capabilities and in the social fabric, empowering us to fight all threats to our values, social model, security and defence; underlines that this pressing investment requires raising public financial resources quickly and in substantial volumes and that this should be based on the principle of social solidarity and a fair redistribution of wealth within our European societies; calls therefore on the Commission to propose new own resources and taxes on the stakeholders benefiting from the current economic and security situation, notably through windfall profits, in order to ensure a fair and sustainable contribution to our collective resilience; recalls that investing in security and defence brings many additional benefits for European society besides greater security and autonomy, and contributes to the desire to make the EU’s economy more competitive;
47. Warns that simply increasing national defence spending without addressing coordination issues, redundant efforts, and misaligned strategies could be counterproductive as it may exacerbate force integration challenges and drive up procurement costs for all Member States by intensifying competition between them; is therefore concerned by the Commission’s proposals in ReArmEU to activate the escape clause of the Stability and Growth Pact for defence investments, which would change the fiscal rules without creating more fiscal space and without accompanying it with proposals for increased coordinated or joint spending; recalls that any exemption should take into account the need to avoid moral hazard and avoid rewarding countries with long-standing inadequacies in their security and defence spending; demands that the Commission and the Member States design any exemptions for defence spending ramp-up in a way that incentivises coordinated spending and ensures the definition of such investments takes into account all threats, including hybrid, and the need to improve military mobility, resilience and security of communications and the availability of skilled workers;
48. Calls therefore for the bulk of the effort to serve EU-level action; regrets that the Commission’s ReArmEU initiative is mostly based on national expenditure; furthermore calls for the EU and its Member States to give prominent coordination roles to the Commission and the European Defence Agency in new financing instruments, which should be coupled with a complete programme for defence, including against hybrid attacks, ensuring that planning, development, procurement and management of capabilities is done together, in groupings of significant numbers of Member States, and often with the Commission and the European Defence Agency acting on their behalf;
49. Recognises that the present multiannual financial framework (MFF) is unable to provide sufficient resources for security and defence, and rejects any increases in security and defence spending in the present and future MFFs at the expense of cohesion policy funds, as proposed by the Commission in its ReArmEU initiative; calls on the Commission and the Member States to adapt the cohesion policy funds to a new geopolitical reality, shifting from a reactive, crisis-response stance to a more proactive policy focused on resilience; underlines that the EU budget alone cannot fill the defence spending gap, but has an important role to play; calls for additional EU-wide and European solutions to bridge the gap until the next MFF; highlights the importance of future MFFs in transforming the current immediate increases in security and defence into structural and sustainable EU-level efforts to ensure the EU’s security and defence;
50. Notes the proposals to make use of readily available sources of capital to finance security and defence, namely the unspent funds of NextGenerationEU and potential financial lines from the European Stability Mechanism, similar to the programme put together during the response to the COVID-19 pandemic; believes that these options could be explored, but would fall short of the needs estimated by the Commission;
51. Calls therefore on the Commission to raise common debt to provide the Union with the fiscal capacity to borrow in exceptional and crises situations, present and future, taking into account the experience and lessons learnt from NextGenerationEU, as we are now experiencing a pressing need to boost security and defence to protect the EU’s citizens, restore deterrence and support our allies, first and foremost Ukraine; notes additional ideas to create a rearmament bank or a special purpose vehicle with pooled national guarantees to ensure Member States have easier access to markets; underlines that the meaningful involvement of Parliament as one arm of the budgetary authority in the governance of future EU defence spending is a sine qua non; reiterates that the governance of whatever instrument is used should be such that it gives rise to a European defence programme that uses the funds to solve coordination problems in planning, developing, procuring, maintaining and deploying capabilities, reduces dependencies from non-European countries, supports the EDTIB and ultimately enables the EU and its close allies to act autonomously and in a coordinated manner;
52. Recognises the importance of mobilising private capital into security and defence; recalls, however, that, as governments remain the sole procurers of military capabilities, private capital will not replace public capital in the security and defence sector; calls on the Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIB) to consider an investment guarantee programme, similar to InvestEU, to assist in this effort; calls on the EIB to re-evaluate the list of excluded activities, to adjust its lending policy to increase the volume of available funding in the field of security and defence, and to investigate earmarked debt issuance for funding security and defence projects; calls for more consistent support for companies by reducing unnecessary administrative burdens and simplifying procedures, in particular by increasing information-sharing between public authorities, upholding the once-only principle and making full use of digital technologies; calls for the EU to start preparing emergency procedures for projects established in response to major crises or wars;
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53. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the European Council, the Council, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the President of the Commission and competent Commissioners, the EU security and defence agencies, and the governments and parliaments of the Member States.
- [1] Directive 2009/43/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 May 2009 simplifying terms and conditions of transfers of defence-related products within the Community, OJ L 146, 10.6.2009, p. 1, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/dir/2009/43/oj.
- [2] Directive 2009/81/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 on the coordination of procedures for the award of certain works contracts, supply contracts and service contracts by contracting authorities or entities in the fields of defence and security, and amending Directives 2004/17/EC and 2004/18/EC, OJ L 216, 20.8.2009, p. 76, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/dir/2009/81/oj.