{"id":427334,"date":"2025-05-21T11:56:50","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T09:56:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/05\/21\/safe-strumento-ue-difesa-150-miliardi\/"},"modified":"2025-05-21T13:59:02","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T11:59:02","slug":"eu-ambassadors-approve-150-bln-eur-safe-defense-instrument","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/05\/21\/eu-ambassadors-approve-150-bln-eur-safe-defense-instrument\/","title":{"rendered":"EU ambassadors approve 150 bln eur SAFE defense instrument"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013\u00a0 <\/strong>EU ambassadors gave the green light to SAFE this morning (May 21),\u00a0the instrument that will allow\u00a0raising up to \u20ac150 billion in loans for defense spending<\/strong>, backed by the EU budget. A key part of Ursula von der Leyen\u2019s European rearmament plan<\/a>, which aims to mobilize \u20ac800 billion over four years, the fund is now one step away from being established with only the final approval from\u00a0the ministers of the 27 member states, which is expected on Tuesday, May 27, pending.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more we invest in equipping our armies, the more we will deter those who wish to harm us,\u201d said the Polish presidency of the EU Council, announcing the agreement. Diplomatic sources spoke of \u201cneither obvious nor easy\u201d compromises<\/strong> that made it possible to overcome resistance from some capitals and that \u201cwill ensure a fair distribution of loans among Member States.\u201d<\/p>\n

Von\u00a0der Leyen made very clear that\u00a0with\u00a0the use of the emergency procedure, the priority for the entire Rearm Europe package (which effectively sidelines the Parliament’s co-legislative role) was to act quickly. Sixteen countries have already\u00a0requested to\u00a0activate\u00a0the Stability and Growth Pact\u2019s safeguard clause<\/strong> to support additional defense spending \u2014 the other tool made available by the European Commission.\u00a0European Council President.<\/strong>\u00a0On X<\/a>, Costa said this marks another \u201cimportant step toward a stronger Europe,\u201d which \u201cdelivers on the commitments made by EU leaders in March, helping Member States to invest jointly in European defense and to strengthen our common security.\u201d<\/p>\n

SAFE aims to raise up to \u20ac150 billion in capital markets, which will be disbursed in the form of direct loans<\/strong> to member states that request them based on national plans. It provides for simplified and accelerated joint procurement procedures<\/strong>\u00a0and two categories of eligible products, diplomatic sources explain. On one side, ammunition and missiles, artillery systems, ground combat capabilities and related support systems, small drones and anti-drone systems, critical infrastructure protection systems, and military mobility systems.\u00a0On the other hand,\u00a0air and missile defense systems, surface and underwater maritime capabilities, drones, strategic airlift and aerial refueling systems, space-based resources and services, and artificial intelligence systems.<\/p>\n

Regarding eligibility criteria, the \u201cmost controversial\u201d aspect of the discussion was that the Member States reportedly insisted on giving \u201cparticular attention\u201d to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). On one of the most sensitive issues — the \u2018Buy European\u2019 clause — it was decided that the cost of components from third countries, EFTA states, or Ukraine must not exceed 35%<\/strong> of the estimated cost of the final product\u2019s components.\u00a0Joint procurement will also be open to EU candidate countries and third countries with which the Union has concluded security and defense partnerships. As for the United States and pressure from Trump for Brussels to buy more US-made military equipment, a provision \u201cto strengthen the transatlantic dimension and ensure complementarity with NATO\u201d was reportedly added, sources explained.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The funds raised on the capital markets will be disbursed in the form of direct loans to Member States that request them and will be guaranteed by the EU budget. The controversial issue of ‘Buy European’ has been resolved: the cost of components from non-EU countries must not exceed 35% of the total.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7527,"featured_media":427315,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[30809],"tags":[31278,27860,27072],"class_list":["post-427334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-defence-security","tag-coreper-en-2","tag-defence","tag-council-ue-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427334"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":427369,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427334\/revisions\/427369"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}