Defense: 18 EU member states have already applied for SAFE fund loans

Brussels – In times of continental rearmament, the chancelleries of the EU-27 are moving in a scattered, uncoordinated manner. However, the 150 billion in loans made available by Ursula von der Leyen is tempting. Thus, the list of Member States that have applied to access the SAFE Fund has grown to 18, including Italy. 

At the stroke of midnight between yesterday (29 July) and today, the deadline set by the EU executive for submitting preliminary expressions of interest in using the SAFE fund (Security Action for Europe) expired. With a 150 billion euro budget, the fund is the first significant European military investment to fund joint defense procurement, in which both Member States and third countries such as Norway, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and Ukraine can participate. 

As of today, 18 requests for access have been received from as many EU countries – Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, and Spain – for a total of at least 127 billion euros. Tonight’s, however, Commission spokesmen emphasized, was a “soft deadline.” National governments that want to can apply for loans until the formal deadline of 30 November 2025.

The SAFE Fund is one of the two pillars of Ursula von der Leyen‘s ReArm Europe plan (which recently faced a confidence motion in the European Parliament). It complements the commitment by Brussels to ease EU rules on defense borrowing up to 1.5 percent of GDP by activating the safeguard clause of the Stability and Growth Pact to mobilize (the Commission hopes) some 650 billion euros in investments. 

Two opposing, almost schizophrenic movements: on the one hand, the 27 member states are encouraged to spend independently (with the risk of further worsening the well-known interoperability problems); on the other, to coordinate on joint procurement.

 For Defense and Space Commissioner Andrius Kubilius, the governments’ interest “demonstrates the unity and ambition of the EU in security and defense matters,” and the SAFE instrument “is a symbol of our collective commitment to strengthen our preparedness” in a time of high geostrategic volatility.

 A situation in which the twelve-star executive is considering militarizing the eastern borders to keep Russia in check: to do this, it proposes the use of fresh funds from the next EU 2028-2034 budget, on which particularly complex inter-institutional negotiations just got underway and look like they will be particularly complex.