{"id":429958,"date":"2025-06-17T18:48:16","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T16:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/06\/17\/omnibus-difesa-semplificazione-kubilius\/"},"modified":"2025-06-17T19:25:24","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T17:25:24","slug":"simplification-the-defence-omnibus-arrives-kubilius-we-are-not-at-war-but-neither-are-we-at-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/06\/17\/simplification-the-defence-omnibus-arrives-kubilius-we-are-not-at-war-but-neither-are-we-at-peace\/","title":{"rendered":"Simplification, the defence Omnibus arrives. Kubilius: “We are not at war, but neither are we at peace”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Simplification is also coming to the defence sector<\/strong>. The European Commission has unveiled its proposal to clarify (and if possible streamline) the regulatory framework<\/strong> that it has put in place so far, to enable Member States and companies to move more smoothly<\/strong> and with greater predictability in an area that, given the new geopolitical winds, has become a priority.<\/p>\n

The new Omnibus package, the fifth, was presented this afternoon (17 June) by three Commissioners at the EU Parliament in Strasbourg:\u00a0Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen<\/strong>, responsible for Technological Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, Valdis Dombrovskis<\/strong>, responsible for the Economy, and Andrius Kubilius<\/strong>, responsible for Defence and Space.<\/p>\n

The objective\u00a0remains the same:\u00a0to stimulate defence spending<\/strong>\u00a0in the Member States, ensuring the\u00a0Union can respond promptly to crises<\/strong>, particularly\u00a0<\/span>in a context where continental security<\/strong> is rapidly deteriorating. The framework is set out in the White Paper on\u00a0Defence and Preparedness<\/strong> presented last March.<\/p>\n

\"Henna<\/a>
Commission Vice-President for Technology Sovereignty, Security, and Democracy, Henna Virkkunen (photo: Valentine Zeler\/European Commission)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“We are cutting red tape to help Member States and industry<\/strong> act faster, invest smarter<\/strong> and strengthen our collective deterrence,” Virkkunen said. A clarification of current rules<\/strong>\u2014e.g. on competition, company mergers, state aid, environment, chemicals and banned weapons categories\u2014to be accompanied, where possible, by a process of deregulation<\/strong> aimed at accelerating both public and private investment<\/strong> in the sector and facilitating access to EU funding<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Among other things, the package presented today will\u00a0introduce an\u00a0accelerated authorisation regime<\/strong>\u00a0for defence-related projects,\u00a0reducing the duration of the process to 60 days<\/strong>\u00a0(currently, authorisation can take\u00a0<\/span>several years to arrive). Joint procurement should also be<\/strong> facilitated<\/strong> within the framework of the \u20ac150 billion SAFE\u00a0fund<\/a>, also aiming to accelerate\u00a0cross-border transfers of defence-related products<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the aim will be to reduce the administrative burden<\/strong> for applicants and participants\u00a0in the\u00a0European Defence Fund<\/strong>\u00a0(EDF), participation in which will also be facilitated for Ukrainian entities and companies, enabling them\u00a0to proceed on the path<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0integrating<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0the Kyiv military industry<\/strong> with the twelve-star one. Finally, access to European funding will be<\/strong> improved<\/strong> by simplifying the eligibility criteria.<\/p>\n

\"Valdis<\/a>
Economy Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis (photo: Valentine Zeler\/European Commission)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For Dombrovskis, it is a matter of “relieving Europe’s enormous economic burden<\/strong>” to\u00a0establish “a\u00a0defence industrial and technological capability<\/strong>,<\/span>” and also, in the long run, “discourage potential threats<\/strong>” from outside.<\/p>\n

On the irreversible change of the continental security architecture,<\/strong> Kubilius also spent a few words. The EU “is not at war,”<\/strong> he assured, but “we are no longer at peace.”<\/strong> And therefore, one can no longer reason with a mentality that was good for the times of ‘absolute peace’.\u00a0He cites the\u00a0<\/span>intelligence reports<\/strong>\u00a0of several member states (the Baltic and Scandinavian countries in the lead), according to which “<\/span>Russia will have the capacity to launch an attack in the next three to five years against a NATO or\u00a0EU country<\/strong>.”<\/span><\/p>\n

“We do not want to be alarmists,” he emphasises, “but we must act according to how the world is and not how we would like it to be.”\u00a0<\/strong>The only way to guarantee European peace<\/strong> is to make sure that we are ready to defend ourselves<\/strong> credibly and quickly,” he argues. Si vis pacem, para bellum.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Commission clarifies existing rules and opens up to cutting red tape to encourage public and private investment to create a European ‘industrial and technological capacity’ (and discourage potential Russian aggression)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":429951,"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":[29924,27860,29984,25882,29116,30437,27356,25979],"class_list":["post-429958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-defence-security","tag-andrius-kubilius-en","tag-defence","tag-henna-virkkunen-en","tag-investimenti-en","tag-procurement-conjunct-en","tag-omnibus-en","tag-simplification-en","tag-valdis-dombrovskis-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429958","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\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429958"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":429967,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429958\/revisions\/429967"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}