Kubilius: ‘approve EDIP by year-end, it is crucial for our defence’

Brussels – The work has been done, now it must be implemented and completed, and this passes through the final approval, “by the end of the year” of EDIP, the EUR 1.5 billion EU defence industrial plan, “essential for defence readiness” against threats. Insisting on this point, Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius, in his address to the European Parliament plenary session, takes stock of a dossier increasingly perceived as a priority.

Kubilius recalls that he is the first commissioner ever specifically responsible for the long-stalled common defense, which has forcefully entered the European agenda in the wake of Russian military maneuvers in Ukraine. He points out that the EU is practically at the first turn, in the first year of the mandate of the second von der Leyen Commission. “When I look back on this first year, I call it the year when we created opportunities for defence readiness. Now is the time for delivery” of what has been established and defined so far, Kubilius points out.

 https://www.eunews.it/en/2025/03/14/white-paper-on-defense-joint-eu-procurement-and-industrial-integration-with-ukraine/

To keep the focus high and reiterate once again the need to proceed with what has been done so far, the Defence Commissioner recalls how the EDIP business plan “allows for the integration of Ukraine into the European Union as far as the defence industry is concerned.” It is, therefore, a tool to bring Kyiv into the twelve-star club and wrest it from Russian expansionist aims. 

Hence, the request is to complete the approval process for the draft defence industrial plan by the end of 2025. The informal agreement was reached in October, and that makes the rest of the work downhill. It is a matter of speeding up, and the green light from Parliament, in the hopes of Kubilius, should already be today (25 November). Then, only the Council will have to give its final approval, which is not in doubt. 

The Commission receives support from Parliament for the file, and also a readiness to relaunch it. “We must increase the resources” of the plan, emphasises François-Xavier Bellamy (EPP), co-negotiator of the Parliament for the Committee on Industry. “EDIP is only the beginning. We do not want war, but we must discourage others from starting it,” he added.