Danish Presidency closes door on joint debt for defense: ‘We already have SAFE’

Brussels – Mario Draghi is right: more could have been done, but the EU has done little instead. Lost time must be made up, but on the common defense debt, one can wait a little longer. The Danish presidency of the Council of the European Union dampens enthusiasm and notes that on some issues, it remains challenging to break those taboos that even Draghi himself urged in his speech one year after presenting his competitiveness report. 

On that same occasion, Draghi relaunched the idea of “common debt for common projects,” starting with defense. However, not even three days went by before Danish Economic Affairs Minister  Stephanie Lose put the brakes on: “We have just started to implement the SAFE programme and I think it is important to see how this instrument is progressing. “Let’s focus on that.“

 https://www.eunews.it/en/2025/09/09/safe-e14-9-billion-loan-for-italy-to-boost-defence/

The dedicated SAFE Defence Fund (acronym for Security Action for Europe), with resources of EUR 150 billion, provides loans to EU member states to invest in the defense sector and boost production through joint procurement for common projects. Therefore, it is an instrument designed for joint efforts, with the financial aspect organized in expenditure chapters per country, but without joint debt; this is politically acceptable for the time being. 

“We support the SAFE instrument. We think it is already very important that we have come to have this instrument,” Denmark’s Minister of Economic Affairs reiterated, in a statement confirming the position on common debt. No explicit rejection, but certainly no go-ahead for the immediate future. SAFE “is a good starting point.”

The European Defense Union thus begins here; the common debt that Draghi advocates can wait. On all other fronts, however, a faster pace will be necessary. “We cannot be happy as long as there is untapped growth potential,” acknowledges Lose, who, however, invites the states to do their homework: “To be competitive, we have to do things together, at European level, and each member state has to do them at national level.” A new invitation to “structural reforms,” which have never disappeared from the twelve-star’s agenda.